Tag Archives: class action

The Blushing Plaintiff — Weisberg v. Lancome

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Products that don’t live up to their hype, i.e., their marketing schemes, are a dime a dozen. The whole point of advertisements and statements like “new and improved” is to get people to buy the product. We all want to believe the pitch, but most of us realize there is a little “spin” involved. Does anyone truly believe that if you slap on Aqua Velva cologne that you’ll be fighting off supermodels who throw themselves at you? Yet some people must take these sales pitches and marketing ploys VERY seriously. A lawsuit was recently filed against make-up manufacture Lancome, alleging that their “24 hour” make-up didn’t actually last 24 hours.

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The suit, filed April 30 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, was brought by Rorie Weisberg, an orthodox Jewish woman who contends that she purchased this product to get her through the Sabbath, since she cannot apply (or re-apply) make-up from sundown Friday night until Saturday evening…hence the “need” for a 24 hour make-up. When I first heard of her suit, I presumed that some unfortunate event must have befallen her sometime during her Sabbath period or religious services she may have attended (perhaps her make-up streaked or made her look freakish, leading to expulsion from her house of worship), causing her to suffer some significant damage. In fact, however, she claims to have “tested” the product on a Thursday, and that it was “cakey”, and her nose was shiny by Friday morning. Therefore, she apparently chose not to even use the product that night for her planned Sabbath primping. So what gives?

While I do not claim to know much about women’s make-up, much less the importance of make-up during the 24 hour Sabbath period in the Jewish religion, I was surprised that this “problem” with Lancome’s product could have been this significant. Surely the plaintiff had been dealing with Sabbath make-up issues weekly for many years? Ultimately, the true problem revealed itself when I wiped the mascara off the lawsuit and learned that it is actually just another class-action suit, seeking millions in “damages” for unsuspecting consumers who didn’t get a full 24 hours out of their make-up. As I addressed in an earlier article related to a class action suit against Anheuser-Busch over the alcohol content of their beer, I don’t think we’ll really see a solution from this litigation for poor Ms. Wiesberg’s problem in particular. For that, perhaps she should find out what the women who worked with Jack Bauer in “24” used – they never seemed to have time to re-apply make-up, but always looked their best.

Anheuser-Busch Faces Class Action Suit Over Allegedly Watered Down Beer

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There are no limits to the imagination of “class action” attorneys who want to find an issue to raise on behalf of those little people allegedly victimized by the conduct of the big corporate defendant. As most people know, the class plaintiffs in any such suit generally each get a few bucks, or a coupon for 50% off future purchases of the product in issue, while the attorneys reel in millions of dollars in fees for representing the class. I don’t begrudge the attorneys their contingent fee — if you take the risk of litigation you should reap the reward — but class action cases just seem so inequitable because instead of an individual plaintiff receiving the bulk of any settlement or verdict, millions of “plaintiffs” really get nothing. The more troubling part are the trivial things they come up with over which to file suit. The whole idea behind bringing a class action suit over some minor issue is that it is fiscally more reasonable for the defendant to settle the claim than to litigate it. I only wish more of them really went to trial, where the proof of some actual damage is required. The latest ingenious claim is that Anheuser-Busch has “watered down” their beer. To their credit, A-B is fighting back with an advertising campaign mocking the idea that they water down their product. But what I’d really like to see is the actual trial on these claims. How do the plaintiffs march into court and assert that they were damaged by getting LESS alcohol? Are they going to claim that in order to get good and wasted they had to buy 12 beers instead of 11? That when they got pulled over for drunk driving they only blew a .07 instead of the legally required .08 to get that DUI ticket because A-B was cheating them out of alcohol? And if it is really watered down, they likely got a few less calories than expected. Are they going to assert that their beer gut just doesn’t measure up to their buddies?http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-pouring-beer-image5000172

We all understand the concept that we expect to get what we paid for. If you expected your beer to be 5% alcohol and for some reason it was only 4.9%, then the seller didn’t meet their end of the bargain. No doubt about it. And I guess this is what the plaintiff lawyers here are really trying to say. But seriously, is this the kind of thing that should be tying up our legal system? This is the kind of suit that really does give lawyers a bad name. I’m upset. Think I’ll go have a beer…or maybe two.