… on Election Day, Nov. 4, 2008, a New Hampshire property owner was removing Democratic political signs someone else had planted on his property, when some busybody walking his dog verbally accosted him with the words, “What are you doing? You can’t do that. Who do you think you are?”
To which the property owner, quite reasonably, responded, “Who the (F-bomb) are you?”
At which point the dog owner, who turns out to be a professional busybody, a.k.a. lawyer,* sought to impress the property owner with that fact by presenting his business card. The property owner looked it over, and announced, “Ryan Russman, you are a (F-bombing) (expletive).”
Yorba Linda attorney Neil B. Fineman will soon have enough womens’ apparel to be able to open a dress store.
It seems that Fineman, 40, brought a class action by which he forced Windsor Fashions to stop committing routine violations of the Song-Beverly Credit Card Act. The class was comprised of all customers who, between Nov. 29, 2006—one year before the action was filed—and Nov. 18, 2008 (when the class was preliminarily certified) “purchased merchandise from Defendant’s stores in the State of California, used a credit card to make the purchase(s), and whose address, E mail address or telephone number was requested and recorded by a Windsor Fashions employee.”
Collecting “personal identification information” from credit card customers is proscribed by Civil Code §1747.08(a)(2).
Under a settlement, arrived at with the assistance of a mediator, it was agreed that Fineman was entitled to a $125,000 fee for his legal services. However, customers who were subjected to the proscribed practice won’t receive any cash under the accord...only a $10 gift card. In an order signed Friday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brett Klein likewise provided that Fineman will be paid off in the form of such cards: “12,500 ten-dollar Windsor Fashions gift cards.”
The lawyer is to get 3,500 of those cards by next Monday and 750 of them on the third day of each month through January of next year. Too, the named plaintiff, Jacqueline Cohen, will garner 250 of the gift cards as an “incentive reward“ for leading the charge.
Ascertained members of the class have already been mailed or e-mailed $10 certificates, and others may assert class membership at any during a short period of time.
Does the outcome penalize Windsor Fashions for its erstwhile violation of the statute? Not much. It does afford Fineman the power to deplete the stock of any of its stores. However, the certificates going to consumers merely constitute inducements to come to a Windsor Fashions store and spend money, any expenditures being bound to exceed $10. In essence, they’re discount coupons. What Fineman has done is to promote purchases at the defendants’ stores.
Fineman could not be reached for comment.
