Article Type: Lawsuit

Airlines Antitrust Capacity Seating Class Action Lawsuit

This lawsuit centers on the question of whether airline executives violated federal antitrust laws by colluding to maintain “capacity discipline” – which means limiting the number of flights and seats despite increased demand and lower costs.

In 2015, four airlines control close to 80% of the air travel market in the United States: Delta, United, American and Southwest.

The complaint alleges that Delta, United, American and Southwest conspired to fix, raise, maintain and/or stabilize the price of domestic air travel services since January 1, 2010.

The complaint alleges that the four airlines have taken advantage of recent consolidations to fix, raise, maintain and/or stabilize the price of domestic air travel services by collusively imposing “capacity discipline” in the form of limiting flights and seats despite increased demand and lower
costs, particularly in the form of jet fuel costs, which make up a significant portion of costs.

The complaint goes on to allege that the four airlines have implemented and policed their illegal agreement through, inter alia, public signaling of future capacity restrictions and publicly imploring each other to limit capacity increases. The complaint further alleges (on information and belief) that the four airlines have also secretly communicated with another, including via trade associations.

Adidas Defective Springblade Class Action Lawsuit

This class action alleges that the soles of the Adidas SpringBlade running shoes are defectively designed causing the soles to wear out prematurely. In a nutshell, the unique design of the sole and the fact that it is glued to the upper, causes the sole to deteriorate faster than commercially reasonable.

Since running shoes are big business, Adidas tried to revolutionize the running shoe industry in 2013 when it introduced the SpringBlade. What makes the SpringBlade unique is that the sole of the shoe features 16 forward angled blades made of high tech polymer. These blades purport to react to any environment, compressing and releasing energy to create an efficient springy push off. Think of running on springs.

The design on the SpringBlade is allegedly different in that bottom part of the sole in most sneakers are stitched to the upper part of the sole. The Spring blade is not stitched at the mid section of the shoe but allegedly glued. This coupled with the harder nature of the top of the sole combine to cause the sole to wear prematurely.

The complaint is compelling in part because the plaintiff alleges that his shoes began to deteriorate after only one or two runs on a treadmill.

McCormick Black Pepper Class Action Lawsuit

This lawsuit alleges that McCormick’s cut the amount of black pepper in a variety of its containers by 25% but failed to properly notify consumers of this pepper reduction.

McCormick markets and sells branded McCormick® Pure Ground Black Pepper and McCormick® Black Peppercorn Grinder, and supplies store-branded tins of pure ground black pepper.

On or about June 27, 2015, Plaintiff purchased, for personal use, a tin of McCormick® Pure Ground Black Pepper, believing it was substantially filled to capacity. Plaintiff subsequently learned that this product actually contained only approximately 3 ounces net weight of ground black pepper. Plaintiff would not have purchased this product had she known that it was substantially underfilled, or Plaintiff would not have paid what she did for the product.

Black Pepper prices have sky-rocketed since 2014. Apparently, McCormick’s response to the increased prices was to reduce the amount of pepper in many of its standard containers and keep the container the exact same. According tho the complaint, McCormick did modify the new weight disclosure on its containers.

This lawsuit alleges that the company should have done more. The exact same containers have been used for decades and consumers have come to expect a certain amount of pepper in each container. By decreasing the amount of pepper by 25% without sufficient notice arguably violates consumer protection laws.

This case also involves two lesser known statutes. Both federal and California law prohibit certain practices called “slack-filling”, which in a nutshell prohibits using labels to hide the true amount of product. The complaint sites these statutes but does not plead violations of with of them.