“Santander Consumer USA will pay $65 million to states and forgive hundreds of millions more in consumer debt as part of a settlement with a group of attorneys general over practices in its subprime auto lending business,” reports Laura Alix in American Banker.

“The attorneys general, representing 33 states and the District of Columbia, said the Dallas-based lender had exposed borrowers to unnecessarily risky loans with a high chance of default. In addition to paying $65 million in restitution, Santander Consumer has also agreed to forgive nearly $500 million in car loan debt to borrower nationwide.”

“Santander defrauded desperate consumers by placing them into auto loans the company knew these customers could never afford to pay, resulting in defaults and negative ratings on consumers’ credit reports.”

“The agreement announced Tuesday caps an investigation the attorneys general launched early in 2015 into the U.S. consumer lending unit of the Spanish banking giant Banco Santander. The coalition said its investigation revealed Santander Consumer knew that certain groups of consumers had a high risk of default, but still steered them into loans with high loan-to-value ratios, significant backend fees and high payment-to-income ratios.”

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“A historic settlement reached between the state and Detroit students calls for $94.5 million in future literacy funding, a $280,000 payout among seven plaintiffs and the creation of two Detroit task forces to help ensure a quality education for students,” reports Jennifer Chambers and Beth LeBlanc in The Detroit News.

“News of the agreement came after the Detroit students were locked in a nearly four-year legal battle with the state for better school and learning conditions. The lawsuit was brought by seven students who argued they were deprived access to literacy because of a lack of books, teachers and poor building conditions.:

“Despite the state’s position to defend itself against the students’ accusations of inequality over literacy access, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Thursday she has maintained that every student, no matter where they come from, has a birthright to a quality public education.”

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“In a landmark acknowledgment of the toll that content moderation takes on its workforce, Facebook has agreed to pay $52 million to current and former moderators to compensate them for mental health issues developed on the job. In a preliminary settlement filed on Friday in San Mateo Superior Court, the social network agreed to pay damages to American moderators and provide more counseling to them while they work,” reported Casey Newton in The Verge’s Tech.

“Each moderator will receive a minimum of $1,000 and will be eligible for additional compensation if they are diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder or related conditions. The settlement covers 11,250 moderators, and lawyers in the case believe that as many as half of them may be eligible for extra pay related to mental health issues associated with their time working for Facebook, including depression and addiction.”

“In September 2018, former Facebook moderator Selena Scola sued Facebook, alleging that she developed PTSD after being placed in a role that required her to regularly view photos and images of rape, murder, and suicide. Scola developed symptoms of PTSD after nine months on the job. The complaint, which was ultimately joined by several other former Facebook moderators working in four states, alleged that Facebook had failed to provide them with a safe workspace.”

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“A California federal judge has denied preliminary approval of a $1.1 million settlement in a wage lawsuit against Western Express, sending the parties back to the drawing board,” reports Tyson Fisher in Land Line.

“On May 1, U.S. District Judge Jesus G. Bernal denied Marc Rivera’s preliminary settlement against Western Express worth more than $1 million. Both Rivera and Western Express were seeking certification of the settlement. The class action lawsuit accuses the company of underpaying California drivers by violating rest and meal break wage laws.”

“Explaining the decision, Bernal pointed to the ‘Release’ section of the settlement. Found in nearly all settlements, the release prevents plaintiffs from bringing a related claim against the defendant in the future. If the agreement were to release claims based on different facts, the court can deny the approval.”

“Calling the release ‘overbroad,’ Markson’s counsel filed the objection on behalf of absent class members in the Western Express lawsuit who are also members of the Markson case.”

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“The state Public Utilities Commission on Thursday approved a $1.9 billion settlement with PG&E that allows it to get credit for wildfire prevention spending while at the same time escape being fined $200 million over regulatory violations stemming from two years of massive wildfires,” reports Jaxon Van Derbeken in NBC Bay Area’s Investigative.

“The unanimous vote came after PG&E challenged the findings of a regulatory judge who urged that the company be fined on top of having to pay a total of $1.9 billion in improvements and upgrades.”

“In advocating for the no-fine deal, Commissioner Clifford Rechtschaffen reminded his colleagues about the devastation associated with 15 fires tied to the utility’s equipment in 2017 and 2018. ‘For the victims of the fire … the damage, the pain and the trauma is ongoing,’ he said.”

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“The Newport Beach, California-based company agreed to a three-year deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) that will allow it to avoid conviction for adulterating food in violation of the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act, if it complies with an improved food safety program.”

“According to the facts recited in the DPA and confirmed by Chipotle, the company was implicated in at least five foodborne illness outbreaks between 2015 and 2018 connected to restaurants in the Los Angeles area, Boston, Virginia, and Ohio. These incidents primarily stemmed from store-level employees’ failure to follow company food safety protocols at company-owned restaurants, including a Chipotle policy requiring the exclusion of employees who were sick or recently had been sick. As set out in the DPA, some store-level Chipotle employees from the 2015 to 2018 time period reported inadequate staffing and food safety training. Employees also reported pressure to work while sick, even though that was against Chipotle’s sick-exclusion policies.”

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“A New York lawyer representing two clients in separate but related criminal matters faces a ‘likely unwaivable’ conflict of interest based on the facts presented, a recent state bar association opinion said,” reports Melissa Heelan Stanzione in Bloomberg Law’s The United States Law Week.

“A conflict of interest exists for a lawyer in this situation if it will involve the lawyer in representing opposing interests, or that there’s a ‘significant risk’ that the lawyer’s professional judgment will be adversely affected by the lawyer’s own interests, the April 22 opinion said.”

“The lawyer asked the bar about ethical implications of the dual representation.”

“The clients are in a relationship, and one is charged with a crime where the other was a victim, the opinion recounted. But the alleged victim was intoxicated when the event occurred, and was arrested for driving while intoxicated after the alleged perpetrator was arrested, it said. And each is a witness in the others case, with the alleged victim wishing to testify in favor of the perpetrator, it said.”

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“Atlanta lawyer Robert Ward acknowledges that he took off his pants at a security checkpoint at a federal courthouse in Tampa, Florida,” reports Debra Cassens Weiss in ABA Journal’s Trials & Litigation News.

“In an April 13 opposition, Wyndham noted that U.S. District Judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell ordered Ward Feb. 21 to show cause why she shouldn’t revoke his pro hac vice status for taking off his pants.”

“The Jan. 30 incident was precipitated when a court security officer told Ward that he would have to take off his belt for the metal detector. Ward replied that lawyers shouldn’t have to take off their belts. Ward then took off his pants, threw them in the bin and walked through the metal detector.”

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“Ann Arbor officials this week again delayed voting on a resolution to seek a federal Superfund cleanup of the Gelman dioxane plume,” reports Ryan Stanton in mlive’s Ann Arbor.

“City Council voted unanimously Tuesday morning, April 21, to postpone the matter until July 6, while city officials wait to see how legal negotiations with polluter Gelman Sciences play out in Washtenaw County Circuit Court.”

“Council also voted 10-1 to approve a fifth amendment to the city’s legal services agreement with Bodman PLC, which is representing the city in litigation against the polluter.”

“The contract is being increased by another $92,500, adding to $500,000 previously approved.”

“’The amount of time spent on recent negotiations, including the exchanges of drafts, court conferences, and providing advice as needed, has been more time consuming than anticipated,’ Assistant City Attorney Abigail Elias wrote in a memo.”

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“A Louisville lawyer was arrested after allegedly threatening the life of Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear while criticizing the state’s coronavirus quarantine measures,” reports Vincent Barone in the New York Post.

“James Troutman, 53, faces a misdemeanor charge of third-degree terroristic threatening over comments he made against the governor on Facebook under the account of ‘Greg Troutman,’ which police traced back to the lawyer, according to the local outlet WDRB.”

“Police said Troutman jumped into another conversation on April 20 relating to the planned protests against Kentucky’s stay-at-home order.”

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“A federal judge on Thursday approved the $5 billion Federal Trade Commission (FTC) fine that Facebook agreed to pay last year over privacy violations stemming from the Cambridge Analytica scandal,” reports Chris Mills Rodrigo in The Hill.

“The settlement — reached in July and the largest in the FTC’s history — came after a lengthy investigation into Facebook.”

“The $5 billion agreement was criticized by lawmakers and other critics of Facebook who said the amount was too small given Facebook’s massive profits, and that it let the platform off too easily.”

“Several advocacy groups, including Public Citizen, Common Sense Media and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, had tried to stop the courts from approving the settlement.”

“U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, acknowledged the concerns in his opinion Thursday, saying they call into question laws governing technology companies.”

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“Four of America’s biggest banks have been accused of harming thousands of coronavirus-hit small businesses by unfairly prioritizing emergency loan requests from large customers to earn fatter fees,” reports Matt Egan in CNN Business.

“BAC, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and US Bank were sued Sunday for allegedly failing to process forgivable loans in the $349 billion Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) on a first-come first-served basis.”

“Each bank ‘concealed from the public that it was reshuffling the PPP applications it received and prioritizing the applications that would make the bank the most money,’ each of the four lawsuits said.”

“As a result of this ‘dishonest and deplorable behavior,’ the lawsuit said thousands of small businesses ‘were left with nothing’ when PPP ran out of money earlier this month.”

“The legal action was brought by a range of California small businesses, including a frozen yogurt shop, law firms, an auto repair company and a cybersecurity firm.”

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“The Unites States District Court for the Northern District of California recently found that 10b-5 litigation regarding Elon Musk’s tweets could move forward after reviewing a motion to dismiss in In Re Tesla Inc. Securities Litigation,” discusses Steve Quinlivan in Dodd-Frank’s Litigation blog.

“Mr. Musk famously tweeted ‘Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.’ Mr. Musk later responded to comments related to his tweet and also posted new tweets on the subject. Tesla’s Senior Director of Investor Relations received three e-mails inquiring about Mr. Musk’s tweets. One response given was ‘I can only say that the first Tweet clearly stated that ‘financing is secured.’ Yes, there is a firm offer.'”

“The Court rejected the defendants’ argument that the tweet was not false and misleading. Among other things, the Court found even if the entire tweet is deemed an opinion about the future funding, that would not insulate the tweet from scrutiny; a statement of opinion can be deemed misleading if it conveys facts, and this is especially so when the opinion contains highly specific facts—e.g., here, the specific price of $420. Because Mr. Musk, the CEO of Tesla, included the highly-specific price of $420 at which shares would be bought for the going-private transaction, and because his tweet followed with “funding secured,” a reasonable investor would have interpreted it as something more than a speculative amorphous opinion about future possibilities. Instead, it can be read as implying a more concrete state of affairs.”

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“After a public dispute with the White House about exporting N-95 masks, 3M is turning to trademark law to help combat impressions that it is price-gouging at home … reported earlier this week on 3M’s lawsuit against Performance Supply, a New Jersey company that offered to sell 3M masks to New York City for 500-600% of 3M’s list price. Shortly after filing that complaint, 3M also sued a Utah company for similar activities in the Eastern District of California,” reports Kimberly Maynard in Frankfurt Kurnit Klein + Selz’s IP & Media Law Updates.

“In the second complaint, 3M alleges that Rx2Live, LLC contacted Community Medical Centers, Inc. (“CMC”), a healthcare provider based in Fresno, offering to sell 3M-branded N95 masks at 400-500% of the 3M list price (with a minimum purchase of 10 million masks).  Rx2Live invoked the 3M name multiple times, stating that the masks were “direct from 3M” and that “3M requires payment in full before order can be placed.”  According to 3M, neither of these statements is true.  The case is 3M Company v. Rx2Live, LLC, 1:20-cv-00523.”

“As with the Performance Supply lawsuit, 3M does not allege that Rx2Live sold counterfeit products, placed the 3M marks or a colorable imitation thereof on its own masks, or sold “gray market” goods (i.e., 3M-branded products manufactured for sale outside the U.S. and improperly imported and sold in the U.S.).  It is unclear from the complaints if the defendants are reselling authentic 3M masks they previously purchased, albeit at an unconscionable price.  While price-gouging is illegal, it is not prohibited by the Lanham Act.  In fact, the first-sale doctrine expressly allows consumers to resell unaltered, branded products and to advertise them as such.”

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“Equifax will pay Massachusetts $18.2 million and change its security practices as part of a settlement between the credit reporting agency and the state stemming from a major 2017 data breach, Attorney General Maura Healey announced Friday,” reports Chris Lisinski in WBUR’s Bostonomix.

“Healey sued Equifax shortly after the company’s alleged missteps exposed personal data, including Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers, of 147 million Americans and 3 million Massachusetts residents. The attorney general said the company also failed to notify consumers in a timely manner once the breach occurred.”

“Her office reached its own settlement with Equifax about nine months after declining to join other states in July 2019 agreements, which the attorney general told reporters allowed Massachusetts to secure a larger payment and more strict conditions on the company.”

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“The Supreme Court’s announcement this week that it will hold oral arguments via teleconference for the first time in its history has a small group of America’s top attorneys prepping for the most important phone calls of their careers,” writes Tucker Higgins in CNBC’s Politics.

“The court said that it will hear 10 arguments over the first two weeks in May, including blockbuster disputes over the Electoral College and whether President Donald Trump can keep his tax records shielded from investigators. ”

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“…numerous COVID-19 related class actions have been filed throughout the country in various different spaces—consumer, mass tort, securities, labor & employment, and banking and privacy. These newly filed complaints (and some corresponding opinions) provide us valuable insight into how class action plaintiffs will proceed with outbreak-related claims, and allows us the opportunity to further analyze the viability of putative class action complaints. This post will address the first COVID-19 certification decision and include an analysis of the two most active areas of COVID-19 class actions: mass torts and consumer protection,” write Bethany Gayle Lukitsch, Kamran B. Ahmadian and Drew Gann in McGuireWoods’ In The News.

“While the majority of these cases will take weeks or months (particularly given the court shutdowns that have occurred throughout the country) to progress to the class certification stage, surprisingly we have already seen the first COVID-19 class certified. ”

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“West Palm Beach attorneys William D. Zoeller and Michael V. Baxter of Schuler Halvorson Weisser Zoeller Overbeck obtained a $4 million jury verdict for the family of a 72-year-old man who died after his doctor tried to insert a catheter 14 times—for a procedure the plaintiffs alleged could have waited,” reports Raychel Lean in News.law’s Civil Plaintiff.

“But not all the facts were on their side. Gerald Sanford had a history of mitral valve regurgitation, a heart problem that can cause a back flow of blood. He also had an 80% to 90% blockage in one of his arteries, which the defense said warranted surgery to unclog.”

“Zoeller and Baxter argued that wasn’t as bad as it sounds because Sanford wasn’t experiencing symptoms, such as chest pain or shortness of breath. They claimed the risks of opening that artery outweighed the benefits.”

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“On April 9th, 2020 the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department, affirmed the trial court’s decision in Nemeth v. Brenntag North America, et al., Case No. 9765, New York County Index No. 190138/14, denying the defendant’s post-trial motions,” reports Levy Konigsberg LLP in Benziga’s PRNewsWire.

“The plaintiffs, Florence and Frank Nemeth of Lake Ronkonkoma, New York, sued several manufacturers and distributors of asbestos-containing products, including a distributor of talcum powder named Whittaker Clark & Daniels, Inc. (“WCD”), after Florence was diagnosed with mesothelioma following years of using talcum powder in a product called Desert Flower, the talc for which WCD had sourced from asbestos-containing mines.”

“Florence succumbed to the disease before trial, and was survived by her husband Frank and their two children and four grandchildren.”

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