Consumer Protection Class Actions Have Important Position, Applying New York's Statutory Scheme

Consumer Protection Class Actions Have Important
Position, Applying New York's Statutory Scheme

New York Law Journal, November 23, 1998

Consumer class actions play an integral role in protecting the purchasers of products and services from unfair, deceptive and fraudulent business practices. This article examines the nature, benefits and purposes of consumer class actions, and the initiation of such actions under New York's Consumer Protection From Deceptive Acts and Practices statutes.

1. What is a Consumer Protection Class Action?

Consumer protection class actions typically involve claims by large numbers of individuals seeking modest money damages and/or injunctive relief to redress deceptive business practices or false advertising by a manufacturer or seller of a product or service. Consumer class actions generally do not include claims for personal injuries or for substantial individual damages. Consumer class actions are most often based on misleading statements or the concealment of information about the quality or performance of a product or service ice that affect a class of consumers in a substantially uniform manner.

For example: Acme Products, Inc., a Texas company sells hearing aids. The company claims in promotional material, packaging, advertising and in-person sales pitches that its new hearing aid, the "Super Ear," is the best on the market because, as a result of unique and proprietary technology, users will hear more clearly with the Super Ear than with any other available hearing device. Acme charges twice what its competitors charge for their top of the line hearing aids. Tens of thousands of people throughout the county have purchased the Super Ear.

Ed Tort, who lives on a fixed income in a retirement home in New York, buys two Super Ears for $600.00. Unfortunately, Ed finds he hears no better than he did with his old hearing aids. Ed contacts a lawyer, P.C. Winner, who agrees to investigate. P.C. consults with expert audiologists who tell him Acme's Super Ear is a fraud, that it is no better than any other (and much cheaper) hearing aid. P.C. believes this would be an excellent consumer protection class action. He refers to the New York consumer protection statutes.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7