Lawsuit lives on after rejected Similasan settlement

Northern California Record discusses CEI’s Center for Class Action Fairness’s objection of the Similasan settlement with Ted Frank.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a non-profit public policy organization, led the objection battle over the settlement.

CEI objected to the settlement on behalf of a class member on July 1, taking issue with the $545,00 payday for class attorneys and no compensation for class members.

“Only the defendant and the class attorneys would have benefited under the proposed settlement,” Ted Frank, director of CEI’s Center for Class Action Fairness, said in a statement following the rejection of the settlement. “That’s why we objected, and it’s why eight state AGs supported our objection.”

Frank told the Northern California Record that pre-trial motions are continuing, but he does not know whether there is room for a fresh settlement.

Judge Cynthia Bashant, for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, in her ruling rejecting the settlement, stated, “The named Plaintiffs will receive $2,500, well more than they spent on the offending products, Additionally, the proposed injunctive relief may only benefit a small number of the class members and instead seems to be more tailored to future purchasers.”

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The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Class Action Fairness arm filed an objection on behalf of an unnamed class action plaintiff.

“The settlement was structured so that the only benefits flowed to the lawyers, and the class got nothing for waiving its claims,” Frank, of CEI’s Center for Class Action Fairness, told the Northern California Record.

Frank argued the attorneys should have argued for a class opt out.

“The lawsuit seemed legitimate because homeopathy is essentially a synonym for consumer fraud,” Frank said. “Somehow these lawyers lost a jury trial on similar claims against another manufacturer, so perhaps they shouldn’t be representing these sorts of plaintiffs.”

Read the full article at Northern California Record.