TLPJ Wins Nationally-Significant Ruling Against Payday Lender Preserving Consumer Class Actions

In a consumer rights victory of national significance, the New Jersey Supreme Court agreed with Trial Lawyers for Public Justice and a team of consumer rights advocates today that corporations cannot insert and enforce class action bans in their consumer agreements to get a free pass from consumer protection lawsuits. In Muhammad v. County Bank of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, the Court ruled that a payday lender’s provision that barred borrowers from bringing class action claims violates the public interest protected by New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act and is "unconscionable and unenforceable."

"This is an enormous victory for low-income consumers who were charged interest rates of 600 percent and higher," said plaintiff’s counsel Michael J. Quirk of Williams, Cuker & Berezofsky in Philadelphia (and formerly of TLPJ), who argued the case before the New Jersey Supreme Court on February 14, 2006. "By allowing these borrowers to bring their claims for class-wide relief, the Court ensured that payday lenders and others who violate consumers’ rights can be held accountable under New Jersey’s consumer protection laws."

Lead counsel in the case are Mark Cuker, also of Williams, Cuker & Berezofsky, and Donna Siegel Moffa of Trujillo, Rodriguez & Richards in Haddonfield, New Jersey.

Writing for the 5-1 majority in Muhammad, Justice Jaynee LaVecchia affirmed the value of class actions to consumers: "The public interest at stake in [the plaintiff’s] ability and the ability of her fellow consumers effectively to pursue their statutory rights under this State’s consumer protection laws overrides the defendants’ right to seek enforcement of the class arbitration bar in their agreement."

"New Jersey has joined the growing list of states which have held that corporations may not wipe out their customers’ ability to bring class actions as their best and sometimes only means of enforcing consumer protection laws," said F. Paul Bland, Jr., TLPJ Staff Attorney. "This is why corporations use class action bans – because they effectively get a ‘free pass’ out of consumer protection lawsuits. It is clear that these corporations were not interested in arbitrating consumer protection claims with their customers; rather, they were trying to make it impossible for their customers to bring consumer protection claims in any forum." FULL STORY

West Virginia Orders Nation’s Top Mercury Polluter To Curb Toxic Releases into Ohio River

TLPJ, Appalachian Center, and West Virginia Rivers Coalition Win Tighter Limits on Discharges from PPG Chemical Plant

Mercury is a toxic metal that accumulates in the bodies of fish, making them unsafe to eat. The number one source of mercury pollution in the nation’s waters – a PPG Industries chemical plant near Natrium, West Virginia – must now comply with stricter limits on discharges of mercury into the Ohio River. West Virginia’s Environmental Quality Board imposed tighter clean water standards in response to a legal challenge to the plant’s discharge permit brought by Trial Lawyers for Public Justice (TLPJ) and the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment (Appalachian Center) on behalf of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition (the Coalition). The new limits are 76 times lower than the amount of mercury allowed under the challenged permit. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxic Release Inventory, PPG’s Natrium chemical plant discharged 32 pounds of mercury into surface waters in 2004 – more than a quarter of all the mercury released into surface waters by the top 100 mercury polluters in the country. Mercury is a highly toxic metal that accumulates in the bodies of fish, making them unsafe to eat. Mercury has been shown to damage the human nervous system and is especially harmful to women of childbearing age and children. Due to mercury contamination, West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky have each advised that people should limit their consumption of fish from the river. Pittsburgh-based PPG is a worldwide manufacturer of coatings, including Pittsburgh Paints. PPG also makes glass, fiber glass, and chemicals. PPG’s Natrium chemical plant makes chlorine by pumping salty water through vats of pure mercury. It is one of only eight remaining U.S. plants that still use this old technology, which dates from the late 1800s. FULL STORY