[StBernard] Murphy Oil Class Action Outcome?

[Westley Annis]

Could this be the same that happens to the Murphy Oil Class Action?


-----Original Message-----
From: Stella Awards [mailto:lyris at lyris.net] 
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True Stella Awards #71: 25 January 2006              www.StellaAwards.com
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NETFIXED

  The CD-rental-by-mail firm Netflix allows you to get as many DVDs as
you can watch in a month, subject to the delay in turning them around by
mail. So if you have the three-disks-at-a-time deal, and you can get them
in the mail quickly, you could theoretically watch dozens of movies in a
single month for the flat rate of about $18 if you had nothing better to
do.

  The word Netflix used to describe the deal in its advertising was
"unlimited". Not so, argued one customer. He claimed he could only see
about 10 disks a month under the plan, so (not having anything better to
do) he not only sued in San Francisco County Superior Court, but he
sought -- and received -- class action status to sue on behalf of every
one of the firm's customers. Netflix quickly settled without admitting
any wrongdoing. The deal: the company will upgrade all customers to a
higher plan for free for one month. The catch: unless they downgrade
after the first month back to the plan they were on, they'd stay on the
more expensive plan and would be charged that plan's higher price from
then on out. And presumably the company will stop saying "unlimited" in
their ads. That's it! That's the settlement!

  Well, not quite: the company also agreed to pay the lawyers who sued
it $2.5 million. The Netflix customers who were supposedly "misled" by
the Netflix ads get no money -- not even a brief discount on their
current or past service. The settlement is so bad that another customer,
Chris Ambler, set up a web site, NetflixSettlementSucks.com, to file a
formal objection to it. More than 1,000 Netflix customers have joined in
objecting to the settlement, even helping to fund a court challenge.

  "This is a very good settlement," insists plaintiff attorney Seth
Safier -- the guy who gets to split the millions of dollars with his
partner. "It addresses exactly what the plaintiff was complaining about."

  Few agree with the lawyer with dollar signs in his eyes: the U.S.
Federal Trade Commission has joined the objection, and so has Trial
Lawyers for Public Justice, an association of class action attorneys.
I've long maintained that most lawyers are honorable and decry the damage
done to their profession's reputation by a minority of their peers; it's
about time that the majority stood up and demanded change.


SOURCES:

1) "The Netflix Fix Is In", MSNBC, 15 November 2005
  http://StellaAwards.com/cgi-bin/redirect5.pl?71c

2) "FTC Objects to Netflix Settlement", Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 10
  January 2006
  http://StellaAwards.com/cgi-bin/redirect5.pl?71d