Week Adjourned: 3.5.10

Should it have a Clock on the Door...in case you forgot after 8 hours?Top Class Actions

New Wash Setting: Extra Sure Beyond Any Doubt Clean. What would you do if your washing machine took eight hours to do one load? Just to put that in perspective, you could to fly to Europe in the same time it would take to wash your sheets—depending on where you live. Ummm…doing the laundry or flying to Paris—that’s a tough one. 

But you could only fly to Paris if you could trust that your washer would do the job properly in your absence, and Ms. Riva, who filed a class action against Sears recently, was not feeling the love. 

No doubt. 

Among the litany of problems both she and her machine were experiencing on washday—or would that be wash week—were a high-pitched squeaking noise, the machine stopping mid-cycle for no apparent reason, and then displaying the rather cryptic message, in washing machine secret code, “F1 or F51″—your guess is as good as anybody’s as to what that means. 

Ms. Riva paid $1000 roughly for her new washer in 2006, and Sears issued a recall of the instrument panel in that particular model some time after that. But she didn’t find out about the recall until after she’d paid to have the panel replaced, by Sears, who didn’t mention the recall, but charged her for the replacement because the washer was no longer under warranty. 

You know, I’d be suing too. If she wins, maybe she can take a trip to Paris and do her laundry.

Top Settlements

Medical Malpractice in the News… This is a rather tragic cautionary tale about a 47-year old woman who Continue reading “Week Adjourned: 3.5.10”

Week Adjourned: 5.22.09

Everyone must be busy getting ready for the Memorial Day weekend—I just hope everyone’s making sure those beef patties for the weekend barbeque aren’t part of the recent recall for E Coli…hmm. Well, while you’ve been doing party prep, here’s what’s been going on…

Top Class Action Suits

Bringing good things to life? General Electric and Samsung are now the focus of what could amount to a large class action lawsuit over defective microwave ovens. While the class is pending certification there doesn’t appear to be any uncertainty surrounding the defect. In a nutshell, the ovens can turn themselves on…good trick, just not very safe. I’m sure you could imagine some potential scenarios. The guy who filed the suit has smoke damage to his house—he was lucky.

Will that be on your Sears charge? And it seems Sears has been in the business of selling things it doesn’t own, specifically, its cardholders’ personal and private information. Who’s buying? Interested third parties—companies who want to sell you things that Sears isn’t selling you—like insurance. Shame on Sears! The retail giant is a founding member of American retail…

Continue reading “Week Adjourned: 5.22.09”