We knew there would be much litigation over the Volkswagen emissions scandal, but even we are shocked by the quantity and speed of the filings. As of our last check, PACER showed that Volkswagen has already been named as a defendant in 374 lawsuits in more 60 different federal courts since the scandal broke on September 18. In the words of Ron Burgundy, “Boy, that escalated quickly.”

There were a lot of firms angling to file their complaints quickly to beat the competition to be named lead attorneys when cases reach the consolidation phase. Nearly 200 cases were filed less than a week after the allegations surfaced. However, the clear winner of the 100 meter dash to the courthouse is the Seattle firm of Hagens Berman. PACER reveals that it filed a 27 page class action complaint on September 18, which is the very day the news was reported.  Now that is some speedy complaint filing.

With so many class-action suits filed in so many different courts across the country, these cases will probably head to the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. In order to conserve resources, the panel will likely assign all of the cases to one federal judge. This action will avoid duplication of efforts for simple things such as pretrial hearings. In deciding where to assign the case, the panel will consider things such as the residency of the plaintiffs, the location of the evidence, and the availability of judges. Volkswagen of North America is headquartered in Herndon, Virginia, so the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia may be a candidate for the handling these cases. We shall see.

As we reported last week, two Colorado marijuana users filed a first of its kind lawsuit against a marijuana grower they claim used a dangerous pesticide to treat its product. The target of the suit, LivWell Inc., operates one of the largest marijuana grow houses in the world. Although legalized marijuana is a growing industry, this case a regulatory gap for the new industry. LivWell is accused of using a pesticide known as Eagle 20 on its marijuana crop. Plaintiffs allege that while Eagle 20 may be safe for use on foods, its morphs into hydrogen cyanide when heated with a standard cigarette lighter. Obviously, that might be a big problem for a crop that is usually consumed by smoking it. However, neither Plaintiff claims to have become sick or suffered any personal injury from smoking marijuana treated with Eagle 20. Rather, Plaintiff’s causes of action include breach of contract, implied warranty of merchantability, civil conspiracy, and unjust enrichment.

Nevertheless, the case shines a light on marijuana’s odd place in the regulatory arena. Colorado is one of four states that have legalized the sale of recreational marijuana.  However, safety regulations on marijuana growth are still sparse. The U.S. government still regards almost all marijuana as an illicit drug, and there are no federal safety guidelines for growing it.  Thus, regulation is left to the states who must do their own research on what chemicals are safe for use on marijuana.  Colorado’s Department of Agriculture has an approved list of marijuana pesticides that growers are supposed to follow.  However, the list doesn’t specifically ban any pesticides.

Given the infancy of the marijuana industry and the lack of research regarding pesticide use, this could be the first of many lawsuits to come.

Last week, we reported on the Volkswagen emissions scandal and what we expected would be an onslaught of lawsuits.  So far there have been more 200 federal lawsuits filed in the United States, in addition to investigations from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice.  In response to the scandal, Volkswagen has called in the heavy hitters at Kirkland Ellis to lead its defense. Sure, this Volkswagen case will be a procedural and logistical nightmare given its sheer size and scope.  And we know the EPA and DOJ will be looking for their pound of flesh. But at the end of the day, it’s a bunch of customers that are miffed that their car isn’t as green as advertised.  Nobody died. The California coast is not covered in sludge. Some have estimated that Volkswagen may be on the hook for as much as $80 billion. We’d guess it gets out from under this thing for less than $30 billion. Of course, that is not counting the estimated $33 billion dollars in market value Volkswagen has already lost due its stock price plummeting after the scandal broke. Oh, well.

Everyone knows the old adage from the sports world: “If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin.”  Well, it appears that Volkswagen (VW) has been trying really, really hard when it comes to meeting vehicle emissions standards. Recently, it was revealed that VW was cheating on emissions tests for its “clean diesel” vehicles to make their emissions appear much lower than they actually were. VW has admitted that internal investigations have revealed that the “problem” may effect nearly 11 million VW vehicles world wide.

The issues stems from software on VW’s line of clean diesel vehicles that were apparently intentionally programmed to provide artificially low emissions numbers when connected to emissions testing devices. According to the EPA, VW programmed the engine management software in some diesel cars to activate emissions controls only when being tested. Those same cars would allegedly emit up to 40 times the allowed amount of nitrogen oxide when on the road.

The company is already under investigation by the EPA and the Department of Justice as well as government agencies in Germany, France, Italy, and South Korea. As if the potential for fines and criminal charges is not bad enough, civil lawsuits by consumers are already coming.  Stay tuned.  It should be a wild ride.

We recently reported on a New York case where the judge begrudgingly held that monkeys are not people in the eyes of the law. As you might imagine, PETA disagrees, and it has filed a lawsuit on behalf of a monkey named Naruto from Indonesia. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in California, alleges that Naruto has property rights in a selfie that he took of himself in 2011, which subsequently went viral. We’d post a copy of the photo, but we certainly don’t want Naruto suing us.

One of the defendants in the case is the owner of the camera that Naruto used to take the camera selfie. The lawsuit alleges that he has improperly reproduced and distributed the photo for which Naruto owns the copyright. According to the complaint:

While the claim of authorship by species other than homo sapiens may be novel, “authorship” under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 101 et seq. , is sufficiently broad so as to permit the protections of the law to extend to any original work, including those created by Naruto. Naruto should be afforded the protection of a claim of ownership, and the right to recover damages and other relief for copyright infringement, as asserted on his be half by the Next Friends.

Last year, we reported on the criminal case against a food industry executive who was convicted of crimes related to a 2009 salmonella outbreak that sickened hundreds and may have contributed to the death of nine people. Nearly a year later, he’s finally been sentenced, and it is a really stiff one. Very recently, Stewart Parnell, former head of the Peanut Corporation of America, was sentenced to 28 years in prison for his crimes.

By way of refresher, last September, Parnell was convicted of 71 criminal counts, including conspiracy, obstruction, and introduction of adulterated food. The charges stemmed from Parnell’s alleged decision to knowingly distribute salmonella tainted peanut butter for sale to customers. Federal investigators uncovered years worth of emails and other records showing food confirmed by the company’s lab tests to contain salmonella was shipped to customers. Other batches of food were never tested but nevertheless shipped with labels that falsely indicated that they had been tested for salmonella.

The 28 year sentence handed down by a federal judge in Georgia is a no doubt a tough one and may effectively amount to a life sentence for the 61 year old Parnell. It is the biggest sentence ever handed down in a food safety case, but it is much less than the maximum of 803 years that he was facing. However, as The Wall Street Journal has pointed out, the recent sentences in similar food safety case were much much lighter to say the least:

…last April sentenced the owner of a large egg producer and his son to three months in prison for their involvement in a 2010 salmonella outbreak that sickened thousands of people and led to a nationwide recall. A Colorado judge sentenced two brothers to five years’ probation after the pair pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges following a 2011 listeria outbreak linked to their farm’s cantaloupes that resulted in 33 deaths.

Nevertheless, even if Parnell did have any malicious intent, his actions seem to have been egregious and still caused a lot of harm. As such, the sentence seems appropriate. If nothing else, this case will likely demand the attention of food industry executives across the country.

It looks like the anti-poaching saga for Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe is finally over. We previously reported on a proposed settlement of the case and the court’s rejection of that settlement. By way of refresher, the Plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit alleged that the four Silicon Valley companies agreed to not poach each others’ employees which, in effect, formed an anti-competitive cabal that kept software engineers’ wages down.  After rejecting a prior proposed settlement of $325 million, the court has now approved a $415 million settlement.

The settlement covers more than 60,000 workers in the class. The net effect is that the settlement will provide payouts of approximately $5,000 per plaintiff. Not an insignificant amount of money, but certainly not a windfall for the types of employees whose wages were allegedly suppressed. However, it’s not as though no one received a windfall. The settlement provides for approximately $40 million in fees to the plaintiffs’ attorneys. Lest you think $40 million in attorneys’ fees is unreasonable, this number was down from the $81 million in fees originally requested. Apparently, the court had the good sense to cut fees in half.

It looks like Adobe was the only company to comment on the settlement, telling cnet.com:

Adobe firmly believes that our recruiting policies have in no way diminished competition for talent in the marketplace. Adobe strongly denies that it violated any laws or engaged in any wrongdoing. Nevertheless, we elected to settle this matter in order to avoid the uncertainties, cost and distraction of litigation. We are pleased to have the matter resolved.

How about that?

We’ve got good news and bad news for those of you who are sick and tired of toting around a flask. The good news first: powdered alcohol has won approval from federal regulators and is very close to hitting the market. Basically, it’s freeze-dried or dehydrated alcohol that can either be consumed by itself or mixed with water to produce a drink. The product is being marketed by one company as “Palcohol.” The bad news? More than 20 states have already acted to ban it, either temporarily or outright. On Friday, New York became the latest.

In March, Palcohol received the green light from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. This was the last regulatory step on the federal level before the product could be sold in stores. However, the states can also regulate alcohol sales in their borders. Many have done exactly that.

Based on purported concerns about safety and underage drinking, many states have already banned the product. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo claims that powdered alcohol can easily lead to dangerous levels of intoxication if it is ingested in its powdered form or mixed incorrectly. Cuomo said in statement:

This dangerous product is a public health disaster waiting to happen. I am proud to sign this legislation that will keep powdered alcohol off the shelves and out of the wrong hands.

Palcohol is working hard to reverse these bans and claims that the so-called safety concerns are a false pretense.  On its website, Placohol states “this isn’t about powdered alcohol being a public safety threat. It’s about the liquor companies protecting their market share and profits.” Mark Philips, Palcohol’s creator, claims, “Palcohol is not some super concentrated version of alcohol. It’s simply one shot of alcohol in powdered form.”

We’ll be keeping an eye on this issue for you.

A New York Judge recently heard a case brought by an activist claiming that chimpanzees should be afforded the same legal rights as humans. Although Judge Barbara Jaffe ruled that they don’t possess any such rights, the opinion was a strange one, and it seems that she was initially inclined to grant them such rights but felt constrained by some pesky legal precedent to the contrary.

The case involved two research chimpanzees named Hercules and Leo. Lawyers for the Nonhuman Rights Project alleged that the chimps were entitled to rights that the legal system has previously recognized as applying only to humans. The lawyers asked for a writ of habeas corpus authorizing the transfer of the animals from captivity at a state university to an animal sanctuary in Florida. They argued that “because chimpanzees possess fundamental attributes of personhood in that they are demonstrably autonomous, self-aware, and self-determining and otherwise are very much like humans, ‘justice demands’ that they be granted fundamental rights of liberty and equality afforded to humans.”

Such a grant of rights would have marked a first for a court in the United States. Ultimately, the judge concluded that she was bound by an earlier ruling by a New York appellate court that held that chimps are not entitled to legal person status because of their inability to take on duties or responsibilities. However, Judge Jaffe suggested that the legal system was evolving on the issue just as it did in the debate over gay marriage.  In so doing, she cited a handful of cases granting narrowly expanded rights to animals and stated that this was ultimately question of public policy.

If there’s anything this particular author hates, it’s advertisements. They are everywhere these days . . . from Taxi Cabs to Subway Turnstiles, you just can’t escape them. It’s gotten so crazy that we’ve even seen a local DUI defense law firm place ads on an “over 21” wrist band needed to buy beer at a minor league hockey game. As annoying as the ads may be, it’s just part of modern life. Or is it? Some customers of Slingbox who have been bombarded with new adds aren’t taking it lying down and have filed a class action lawsuit against the Sling Media. If you don’t recall, Sling Media is the maker of the Slingbox, which takes customers’ home TV signal that comes from a cable box and “slings” it to a phone, tablet, or computer anywhere in the world. In a nutshell, it’s like being able to take your home TV and remote with you anywhere in the world. Slingbox is a slick device, but it comes with a hefty price tag north of $200.

According to the lawsuit, in March of this year, Slingbox devices started embedding advertising in media streamed to their mobile devices. So, now, Slingbox customers are forced to watch the embedded ads from Slingbox in addition to whatever ads are being shown through their cable provider. The plaintiffs allege that they never consented to this additional advertising. They claim that Sling Media failed to disclose that the use of the product would be contingent upon and subject to this advertising. According to the complaint, “Slingbox has perpetuated a massive ‘bait and switch’ upon thousands of unsuspecting consumers, each of whom spent as much as $300 or more for these products, but who now need to watch the defendant’s ads to use their devices as promised.”

Of course, the plaintiffs are seeking class action certification in California district court. They have alleged that the ads are misleading and violate business California consumer protection laws and constitute unfair competition or deceptive business practices. As you might expect, the Plaintiffs are not just seeking an injunction to stop the ads. They also seek restitution and disgorgement of all profits garnered from the allegedly unfair or misleading business practices. We’ll keep an eye on this one.