On October 2, 2024, with co-counsel, KL filed a collective and class action alleging that Hannaford Supermarkets had failed to pay department manager positions overtime as required under federal and state law.  The lawsuit is filed in federal court in Portland Maine and asserts that Hannaford had purposely misclassified specific managers as exempt from overtime pay even though they routinely did the same work as regular employees who were eligible for overtime pay.  Hannaford recently changed its classification of department managers and will now pay them for overtime going forward. But Hannaford did not agree to pay department managers for the time they worked over 40 hours a week in the past. The suit KL has brought seeks to recover those unpaid back wages. 

Contact Klafter Lesser if you are a present or former Hannaford employee interested in learning more about the lawsuit.

A copy of the complaint can be found here.  You can learn more about Hannaford, its reclassification and the lawsuit here:

https://www.pressherald.com/2024/10/06/hannaford-makes-mid-level-managers-eligible-for-overtime-pay/

On September 21, 2023, the Court presiding over the class action brought against Spirit Airlines that KL (together with the Hermina Law Firm) has been prosecuting, that challenges Spirit’s imposition of carry-on fees to certain passengers, preliminarily approved a settlement in the amount of $8.25 million.  The proposed settlement is on behalf of the following Class certified by the Court:

first-time fliers of Spirit who purchased their Spirit flight through one of the following six on-line travel agents (“OTAs”) – Expedia, Travelocity, Kiwi, CheapOair, CheapTickets, and BookIt – during the period of August 31, 2011, through May 3, 2017, and whose claims are governed by U.S. law.

The proposed settlement provides for Class Members to receive up to 75% of the carry-on bag fee they paid.  The actual percentage of the carry-on fee paid that will be refunded will depend on the amount of Court approved payments for attorneys’ fees and for reimbursement of expenses and for service awards to the named plaintiffs, and the number of timely and valid Claims submitted.
In order to be eligible to share in the proposed settlement, if finally approved by the Court, you would have to submit a Claim Form no later than January 10, 2024.  The Court has scheduled a final approval hearing for Monday, December 11, 2023, at 9:30 a.m. EST, at the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, 225 Cadman Plaza East, Brooklyn, New York.  You do not need to nor have to attend, but you may at your own expense. The Claim Form and a Notice containing detailed information about the proposed settlement of this class action lawsuit and what rights Class Members have regarding the proposed settlement can be found at the following website: http://www.spiritcarryonbagfeesettlement.com

In a major victory, on August 11, 2023, the federal Third Circuit revived KL’s lawsuit, brought with co-counsel, against the University of Pittsburgh for its failure to refund tuition and fees for the period the University was closed in spring 2020 due to Covid.  This case, like many others around the country, had accused the school of simply closing itself down even though students had paid tuition for in-classroom teaching and fees for facilities and programs that were no longer available. While other colleges refunded, on a pro rata basis, such monies for the time periods they were closed, Pitt simply pocketed them.  The United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania had dismissed the case.  The Third Circuit’s decision (available here) has revived the case.

Specifically, Third Circuit allowed these claims to proceed: (1) the pro rata share of tuition students paid for the Spring 2020 semester for a first-rate live on-campus education and educational experience during the entire semester, but were provided with a materially different product when the University closed its campus in mid-March 2020 and relegated the students to on-line learning; and (2) the pro rata share of fees that students paid for services and facilities for the entire Spring 2020 semester, which services and facilities were not provided after mid-March 2020.  The case will now proceed to discovery.  KL brought the case, Hickey v. University of Pittsburgh, 20-cv-690-WSS (W.D. Pa.), with co-counsel Carlson Lynch LLP and the Anastopoulo Law Firm, LLC.

New York City likes to get fees for booting cars. And it likes to get fees from towing cars. And it has set up its system so that car owners often cannot avoiding paying both. In doing so, the City has violated the Constitution and New York City’s own laws. That’s the basic claim in the class action KL has filed against the City. 

Specifically, the lawsuit challenges the New York Police Department’s policy of requiring car owners to travel to a tow pound in either the Bronx, Brooklyn, or Queens, as designated in the notice on the car provided with the boot, within two hours of the booting or have to pay both a $185 boot fee and a $185 towing in order to get their car back.  KL’s lawsuit alleges that this policy violates New York City Administrative Code § 19-169.2(h), which requires that the vehicle owner be permitted to pay any charge for booting at the location where such vehicle was booted, and also 34 TRCNY §4- 08(9)(v), which requires that a vehicle owner whose vehicle is booted be afforded a reasonable opportunity to challenge the imposed boot fee prior to the towing. The case further claims that this NYPD policy violates the Fourteenth, Fourth and Eighth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The Locks Law Firm is co-counsel with KL on this case. A copy of the Complaint can be found here.

On May 9, 2023, KL filed a class action alleging that the Trustee and Plan Administrators for the Asbury Carbons, Inc. ESOP breached their fiduciary duties to act solely in the interests of the ESOP participants and beneficiaries by agreeing to sell the ESOP’s nearly 20 percent holdings of Asbury Carbons, Inc. stock to enable a sale of the Company by the Riddle family which owned the other 80 percent of the Company’s stock.  It is further alleged that while this sale of the Company was to the significant benefit of the Riddle Family, it resulted in the participants and beneficiaries of the ESOP losing approximately 50 percent of the value of their retirement benefits. 

The case has been filed in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey and is case number 3:23-cv-02540.  A copy of the Complaint can be found here.

On March 9, 2023, Klafter Lesser filed a case alleging that Farmers Insurance both willfully misclassified its insurance agents, failing to pay them overtime due under federal law, and also violated California state laws by terminating a large number of agents on the basis of age. As the complaint alleges, Farmers’ insurance agents are sold visions of running their own businesses and building wealth through entrepreneurship. But these visions are a mirage, as the agents are little more than cogs in the Farmers machine, with
Farmers setting harsh terms of employment, micromanaging the agents and their agencies, and forcing them to work 45 hours a week or more without providing overtime pay. Farmers also wrongfully discriminated against a large number of insurance agents on the basis of age by using its “Managing Underperforming Agents” program as a pretext to terminate its older agents. The case, brought by Klafter Lesser with co-counsel Shegerian & Associates, is Ruffulo v. Farmers Insurance Exch., et al, case number 2:23-cv-01796, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. A copy of the complaint can be found here.

For over thirty years, the District of Columbia has discriminated against semipublic institutions (principally, nonprofit scientific, educational and charitable organizations) who do not have an office in the District. It has done so by prohibiting them from obtaining a sales and room tax exemption when they hold meetings at a hotel in the District – an exemption given only to semipublic institutions that have an office in the District. This discrimination is embodied in D.C. Code § 47-2005(3)(c). In 2017, two non-resident semipublic institutions (the American Philosophical Association and American Anthropological Association) commenced a lawsuit in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia seeking to have this residency requirement be found to violate the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. That Clause prohibits a State, including the District, from discriminating against out-of-State entities when they participate in the State’s economy. No other State imposes a residency requirement on semi-public institutions for tax such exemptions.

The Court has certified the case as a class action on behalf of the following Class:

All semipublic institutions that do not have offices within the District that paid a sales or hotel tax to any of certain specified hotels in connection with any meetings held at any such hotels for the purpose for which the institution was organized or for honoring the institution or its members from December 12, 2016, and continuing until there is a final determination that the requirement under D.C. Code § 47-2005(3)(C) that a semipublic institution must reside in the District in order to obtain an exemption from sales and hotel taxes violates the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution (the “Class Period”).

The case is now proceeding to a determination on the Constitutional claim following an unsuccessful attempt at settlement. Plaintiffs have filed a motion for the Court to address this legal issue and when the briefing is complete on Plaintiffs’ motion over the next two months, the issue will be ripe for the Court to rule D.C. Code § 47-2005(3) is unconstitutional. Plaintiffs’ motion can be found here.

The Court presiding over the carry-on fee class action against Spirit Airlines, Inc. has ordered that the trial of this case will commence on January 16, 2024. This lawsuit is on behalf of passengers (1) who purchased a Spirit Airlines flight through certain on-line travel agents (“OTAs”) (specifically, Expedia, Kiwi, CheapOair, CheapTickets, Travelocity, and Bookit) during the period August 31, 2011, through May 3, 2017; (2) who paid a carry-on fee: (3) whose Spirit flight during that period was their first Spirit flight; and (4) who were a resident of the United States at the time they purchased their Spirit flight. Plaintiffs contend that the price they and the members of the Class paid for a Spirit Airlines flight included the right to bring a carry-on bag onto the plane for no additional charge. In later charging such passengers a fee to bring a carry-on bag onto the plane, Plaintiffs claim that Spirit Airlines breached the contract they had with Plaintiffs and the members of the Class to fly them for a set price and is therefore liable for damages.

The setting of this trial date follows the Court’s March 29, 2022, opinion, denying Spirit’s motion for summary judgment and certifying the case to proceed as a class action (this decision can be found here) and the Court’s denial in substantial part of Spirit’s motion for reconsideration of that decision (that decision can be found here).

In a significant March 29, 2022, opinion, Judge Eric R. Komitee has upheld KL’s case against Spirit over its carry-on fees and certified it to proceed as a class action. Our clients’ claims are that Spirit breached the terms of its contract to fly them by charging separately for carry-on bags. Judge Komitee both denied Spirit’s motion for summary judgment – meaning, he concluded that Plaintiffs’ claims are entitled to be heard by a jury – and he certified a class consisting of first-time Spirit fliers who purchased their Spirit flight through Expedia, Travelocity, Kiwi, CheapOair, CheapTickets, and BookIt from August 31, 2011 through May 3, 2017. There could be a million or more individuals of this Class who are entitled to receive notice of this action. KL is proud, with our co-counsel, to be representing these many Spirit flyers in this consumer class action. After notice goes out, the case will move toward trial. At trial, the focus will squarely be on whether, in purchasing the right to fly on a Spirit flight on a particular day and time from point A to point B, a reasonable consumer would have understood they were agreeing that Spirit could charge separately for a carry-on. A copy of Judge Komitee’s decision can be found here.

Klafter Lesser is now completing the final distribution of $12.5 million to its clients in Goodman v. Burlington Coat Company, a collective and class action settlement on behalf of over 1,500 present and former Assistant Store Managers at Burlington Coat claiming that they had wrongfully been denied overtime pay.  The case took almost a decade of hard-fought litigation and Klafter Lesser is pleased that the final payments to the settlement class members is now being completed.