| Volume 143 Number 91 |
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The People’s Lawyer’s Tip of the Day
Severe weather and natural disasters can occur anywhere — sometimes with little warning. The FTC’s site, Dealing with Weather Emergencies, has practical tips to help you prepare for, deal with, and recover from a weather emergency. It’s mobile-friendly, so easy to get to when and where you need it. Click here for more.
Last-minute census push is ripe for scams, consumer advocates warn
The deadline for concluding the 2020 U.S. Census is coming up, which means the U.S. Census Bureau is intensifying efforts to collect the necessary data. However, consumer advocates worry that scammers are seeking to exploit that situation.
Steve McFarland, President of the Los Angeles Better Business Bureau, says his office is receiving reports that scammers are posing as census workers and are going door-to-door and looking for an opportunity to steal personal information, and even money.Because of the coronavirus (COVID-19), the deadline for wrapping up the census has been extended to September 30. Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody says that just gives scammers more time to operate their schemes. Click here for more.
Your Money
Disasters, whether a powerful hurricane or a health crisis such as the coronavirus pandemic, can cause economic devastation that lasts for months and hurts your credit. But even if you're struggling because of job loss or property damage, you will need to stay on top of your finances. A good credit history can help you obtain a loan, get a credit card, rent an apartment or finance a phone. Your credit score can weather the storm, but first you'll need to reach out to creditors, credit reporting agencies and others. Click here for more.
For the Lawyers
Class-action “incentive” awards are prohibited. The Eleventh Circuit held that so-called "incentive" or "service" awards to named class-action plaintiffs are unlawful. That is, in a class-action settlement, a named plaintiff may not be paid extra money (over and above money paid to all class members) as reimbursement/compensation for her efforts on behalf of the class or as an incentive to act as a representative plaintiff. As recognized by the court, such awards are common in most class actions. The court noted that, “in approving the settlement here, the district court repeated several errors that, while clear to us, have become commonplace in everyday class-action practice.” The district court awarded the class representative a $6,000 “[i]ncentive [p]ayment,” as “acknowledgment of his role in prosecuting th[e] case on behalf of the [c]lass [m]embers.” Relying on two Supreme Court cases from the1800s, the court stated, “in so doing, we conclude, the court ignored on-point Supreme Court precedent prohibiting such awards. The court recognized, however, that the District Court was acting as most other courts act. “We don’t necessarily fault the district court—it handled the class-action settlement here in pretty much exactly the same way that hundreds of courts before it have handled similar settlements. But familiarity breeds inattention, and it falls to us to correct the errors in the case before us.” Johnson v. NPAS Solutions, (11th Cir.) Click here for more.