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Washington State Attorney General Files Lawsuits on Behalf of Duped Small Businesses

Posted by David Brown

· March 22, 2022

SEATTLE – Consumer protection lawsuits have been filed against two companies that sent deceptive letters to small business owners throughout the state of Washington.

According to Attorney General Bob Ferguson, 210,000 deceptive letters were sent out to small business owners, demanding payment for a “Certificate of Status” or a poster for the workplace that can be obtained from the Washington State government free of charge. More than 15,000 business owners paid the two defendants, CA Certificate Service, which also does business as WA Certificate Service, and Labor Poster Compliance, more than $1.2 million.

The lawsuits specifically name the owners of the two companies, including CA Certificate Service owners James L. Beard, Dean G. Marshlack, Chad M. Davis and Joshua T. Strawn. Beard and Davis are also named in the suits as the co-owners of Labor Poster Compliance. The companies operate throughout the United States but are based in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Ferguson said that the two companies have sent out at least 210,784 letters since March of 2019 to dupe business owners into making unnecessary payments to both of the companies. According to the Attorney General’s Office, about 14,783 small business owners shelled out $82.50 each to CA Certificate Service for a whopping total of $1.2 million and over $25,000 at a rate of $79.25 to Labor Poster Compliance with 318 Washington business owners paying the unnecessary fee.

Ferguson said the letters the two companies mailed to business owners were created to look official and to be legitimate. Some business owners attempted to have their money refunded when they realized the companies were misleading them but did not receive any responses or refunds.

Ferguson’s office continues to receive complaints as more business owners come forward who have been duped by the two companies. He is asking the court to require both companies to pay back the money they took from business owners throughout the state, along with civil penalties, attorney fees and court costs. He has cited several other cases that are similar in nature in which small business owners were successful in winning the lawsuits that were filed. He is hopeful to garner the same success for the duped small business owners from his own state.

Categories : News

Tags : Lawsuit, smallbusiness

Questions about whether Mark Zuckerburg will have to Answer Questions under Oath

Posted by David Brown

· March 10, 2022

Facebook has spent a lot of time in the spotlight recently, and the Attorney General’s office in Washington DC is arguing that the CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, should be forced to answer questions related to Facebook’s privacy laws.

A lawsuit was filed against Facebook by the city in 2018. Since that time, Facebook has rebranded itself to Meta Platforms, but the lawsuit remains. According to recent filings related to the lawsuit, Facebook has not taken adequate steps to provide Zuckerberg for deposition even though a District of Columbia Superior Court judge has allowed for Zuckerburg to be questioned pursuant to an order issued on January 10th.

In contrast, lawyers for Zuckerburg have asked the judge to block Zuckerberg’s deposition. The request was filed on the first of February, and it claims that he has no unique information to offer. The request further alleges that the deposition is a transparent attempt to harass the CEO.

Ultimately, this latest battle in the lawsuit is a representation of the greater issue that the lawsuit addresses. Currently, there is an “apex doctrine” in place, which states that high-level executives could be shielded from certain elements of a lawsuit if they did not have direct control of the information directly addressed in the lawsuit. It appears that Zuckerburg’s lawyers are trying to use this very doctrine in an effort to save him from having to answer questions under oath.

The original element of the lawsuit accuses Facebook, which now goes by the name Meta, of misleading its users about who had access to certain pieces of personal data. In 2018, the popular technology company came under fire because a consulting firm based in the United Kingdom, Cambridge Analytica, deceived consumers about the information that it was collecting from the users on the social network.

Attorneys representing Washington DC state that they want to talk to Mark Zuckerberg to learn more about what he knew about the actions taken by Cambridge Analytica, steps the company takes to figure out what its partners and users are doing, and what actions (or inaction) the company took to prevent information of its private users from being stolen. It will be interesting to see if Mark Zuckerberg ever has to answer questions under oath.

Categories : News

Tags : Facebook, Lawsuit, meta

Easterday CFTC Cattle Fraud Lawsuit Case

Posted by David Brown

· March 8, 2022

Cody Allen Easterday might have a bit of room to breathe for a bit. Unlike what the Commodity Future’s Trading Corporation (CFTC) would prefer, Mr. Easterday will enjoy a respite from his civil litigation with the Corporation; the federal bankruptcy court effectively stopped any further action of the lawsuit pending Mr. Easterday’s current bankruptcy filing deliberation.

If Mr. Easterday’s name is unfamiliar, it becomes particularly notorious again in terms of association with the defrauding of Tyson Foods to the tune of $244 million. In that fraud case, which Mr. Easterday has pled guilty to, Tyson Foods was duped out of almost a quarter billion dollars for cattle care that never was provided because the cattle never existed. With regards to that criminal action, Mr. Easterday is facing up to 20 years in federal prison. However, that related sentencing is delayed pending the finalization of his Chapter 11 bankruptcy or May 10, 2022.

The CFTC had lined up among a handful of federal agencies, pursuing recovery from Mr. Easterday for his criminal activity, with the CFTC filing being late to the party and filed only a year prior, in March 2021. In that regard, the court determined that Mr. Easterday would be subject to a $30 million penalty for fraudulent securities activities and similar, in addition to his already existing restitution expected to Tyson Foods. The basis of the CFTC case hinged on Easterday racking up over $200 million in losing market cattle futures trades. That market pitfall, in turn, was the driver for Easterday’s fraudulent invoices to cover the losses.

Easterday positioned himself as a major cattle market player through to organizations, Easterday Farms and Easterday Ranches. Easterday purposefully misrepresented his values in his trades, stating he had more than sufficient cattle inventory to back his trades, particularly in the area of revenue from cattle sales. He did in fact have a real family operation in farming, but Easterday fabricated the buying of cattle and then feeding them, invoicing Tyson for the cost. Amazingly, the company paid the invoices without asking why.

In the bankruptcy liquidation, the bulk of Easterday’s holding will go to a holding company for the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints, auctioned off in June 2021. Among somewhere between 200 and almost 1,000 creditors, Tyson is at the top of the list arguing for some kind of recovery from Easterday’s holdings in bankruptcy. It’s a sad, cold ending for a family farm business started in 1958 and ruined by the market gambling of one person.

Categories : News

Tags : cattle, fraud, Lawsuit, tysonfoods

Lawsuit Filed Against Seattle Hospital in Data Breach

Posted by David Brown

· March 3, 2022

Patient privacy laws have been a significant area of focus during the past few years, and the latest data breach impacted Sea Mar Community Health Centers, which is based in Seattle. In 2021, the hospital was hit by a data breach that impacted close to 700,000 patients. Now, the popular hospital system is facing a potential class-action lawsuit related to its handling of that specific data breach.

Allegations made in the lawsuit against Sea Mar Community Health Centers claim that the health system was negligent in its inability to protect its patients from having their private information stolen.

Sea Mar Community Health Centers discovered the data breach in June 2021. Professionals working for the hospital system determined that criminals had accessed the data center between December 2020 and March 2021, proceeding to copy all of the data they came across. A lot of criminals like to steal information from hospitals because hospitals collect personal information including bank account numbers, credit card numbers, phone numbers, social security numbers, birthdays, addresses, and other examples of sensitive information they might use to commit identity theft.

HIPAA, which is the main patient privacy Law, requires all Hospital Systems, including Sea Mar Community Health Centers, to notify any victims of a data breach within 60 days of what happened. According to the lawsuit, Sea Mar Community Health Centers failed to meet that standard. Some patients had to wait 10 months after the data breach to hear that their personal information had been stolen.

Furthermore, the lawsuit against Sea Mar Community Health Centers seeks to shed more light on the data breach. The plaintiffs want to know what information was stolen, how they were able to access this information, and what the impacts of this theft might be. The lawsuit also alleges that if the hospital system had better safeguards and data protection in place, including proper encryption, all of this could have been avoided.

It will be interesting to see what type of impact this has on hospital systems, which are supposed to follow all regulations in HIPAA. The Sea Mar Community Health Centers data breach has impacted hundreds of thousands of people who are concerned that criminals might use their information for nefarious purposes.

Categories : News

Tags : databreach, hospital, Lawsuit

Another Lawsuit Filed Against Tesla Alleges Racial Discrimination in the Workplace

Posted by David Brown

· February 24, 2022

Tesla has been in the news a lot recently. Recent allegations of racism have been made against the popular electric vehicle manufacturer. In the lawsuit, Marc Cage, who is of African American descent, claims that he was fired for reporting widespread safety violations. Even though reporting widespread safety violations should be enough for some form of protection, he further alleged that he was fired due to issues relating to his race.

In the lawsuit, Cage claims that he reported these safety issues because he was concerned that the conditions of Tesla’s battery factory in Nevada left certain components at risk of exploding, placing countless people at serious risk of injury or death. Furthermore, the lawsuit alleges that there were systemic failures by the company to disclose major risks that led to on-the-job injuries.

The lawsuit also alleges that Tesla maintains commitments to unrealistic production goals. As a result, employees try to work as fast as they can but often lead to mistakes. These mistakes can lead to serious manufacturing concerns, injuries among its workers, and promises that have to be broken. He further alleges that other employees at Tesla, including managers of the company, harassed him on the basis of his race. He further alleges that leadership at Tesla did not do enough to protect him against this form of discrimination.

As an example, he claims that just about every restroom and the Tesla facility in Fremont contained racist slurs, swastikas, and even uses of the n-word. While Tesla has not yet commented on the lawsuit, the allegations made by Cage against the popular electric vehicle company are alarming.

Furthermore, it is not the first lawsuit to be filed against Tesla due to issues related to racism. Recently, a state agency in California filed a lawsuit against Tesla on behalf of African-American workers who claimed they were subjected to drawings and racist slurs at the very same facility. Even though Tesla has said that that lawsuit is misguided, there are other allegations of racism being made against Tesla as well. It will be interesting to see where this most recent lawsuit goes and if it forces Tesla to make any changes.

Categories : News

Tags : Lawsuit, Racism, Tesla

Daycare Center Hit With Lawsuit Related to Injuries From Rope Swing

Posted by David Brown

· February 22, 2022

When parents send their children to preschool, they expect them to be properly protected. Unfortunately, children suffer injuries from time to time, but when these injuries stem from negligence, responsible parties need to be held accountable. That is the basis of a recent lawsuit filed against the Children’s Learning Center. Recently, a lawsuit was filed related to an incident that occurred in 2019. A child was playing at the Rafter J campus location when a rope swing, which was placed above a paved surface, led to injuries.

The executive director of the Children’s Learning Center simply stated that the center does everything it can to make sure every child remains safe but did not comment directly on the lawsuit. The parents of the child who suffered these injuries are seeking damages. The lawsuit states that the daycare center should have known that the child could have fallen off the rope swing and suffered serious injuries, particularly because the rope swing was hanging over a paved surface. The lawsuit further alleges that the center did not follow all reasonable Child Care safety standards.

In the lawsuit, the parents also claimed that they were not aware that the center allows their children to swing on a rope swing above a paved surface prior to enrolling their child at the daycare center.

On the date of the incident, the child was swinging on the rope swing under the supervision of teachers at the daycare center, according to the information in the lawsuit. Then, at some time while the child was swinging on the rope swing, he fell from the swing head first. As a result, he struck his head on the ground, suffering a fractured skull, a traumatic brain injury, numerous lacerations, and a fracture in the left wrist.

The parents are seeking damages to cover the cost of medical expenses, a loss of earning capacity related to the injuries, and potential compensation for future disabilities the child may develop as a result of the injuries.

It is important for children to be kept safe while they are at daycare. Only time will tell to see if the daycare center is held responsible for the injuries sustained by this child in the accident.

Categories : News

Tags : BrainInjury, Children, Daycare, Lawsuit, RopeSwing

COVID-19 Testing Facility Loses Test Samples, Fakes Results in Wide-Reaching Medical Scam

Posted by David Brown

· February 8, 2022

On January 31, 2022, the state of Washington filed a lawsuit against COVID-19 testing facility Center for COVID Control for faking test results and delaying test results. According to the lawsuit documents, the company stored COVID-19 tests in garbage bags rather than properly refrigerating them and reported false results to patients and otherwise endangered public safety.

The lawsuit, filed in King County Superior Court, named the company’s founders, Akbar Syed and Aleya Siyaj, as well as Doctors Clinical Laboratory. Established in Illinois during the COVID-19 crisis, the firm quickly expanded to more than 300 nationwide locations. According to records obtained by the Attorney General’s Office of Washington state in a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raid, the company collected test samples for both rapid testing and regular testing but improperly stored them. In some cases, it is unknown if they tested the swabs.

The lawsuit documents include personal testimony from patients and employees. In one case, a patient who traveled to a Washington facility for a rapid test, which guaranteed results in two hours, had to provide two samples after the company misplaced the first test sample. Told that the second sample had also been misplaced, she then received an email that stated her test results were negative. Already symptomatic, she took another COVID-19 screening at a testing site offered by the Washington Department of Health. It showed her as positive for COVID-19.

Employees of the company and former employees who quit when told to lie to patients and doctors about the status of test samples and results schedules. When the company fell behind on testing the samples, it told its call center employees to lie to callers either telling them that their results were inconclusive, and they needed to submit a second test sample or that their results would be available in 24 hours – whether or not the company had information on the sample.

The Washington state lawsuit also accuses the Center for COVID Control of defrauding the government. The company billed the US government for $124 million to date, for tests on uninsured patients. It also reported insured patients as uninsured. Some patients under Medicare coverage were told to report that they were uninsured. Once it fell egregiously behind on its testing, the company switched to a streamlined intake form that auto-filled “uninsured” as the insurance default.

The company had only obtained a business license for its Yakima, Washington facility in that state. Other locations temporarily closed, such as the Lakewood location, which its city officials closed in January. The lawsuit requests that the King County Superior Court penalize the firm for up to $12,500 per violation of the Consumer Protection Act, and permanently close all of its facilities.
According to Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, “Center for COVID Control contributed to the spread of COVID-19 when it provided false negative results… [They] threatened the health and safety of our communities.”

Categories : News

Tags : COVID, Lawsuit, lost_tests

WA Cities Must Pay $3 million Settlement In Man’s Killing By Police While Trying to Surrender

Posted by David Brown

· February 3, 2022

Three Washington cities will pay $3 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the family of an emotionally disturbed Montesano man killed by officers while he was trying to surrender to them.

Dozens of officers from Aberdeen, Montesano and Hoquiam surrounded the home of 43-year-old Patrick Easton West, who was on the phone with a negotiator who had announced West was calming down during the April 2019 incident. But the heavily armed officers who were part of a SWAT-like “critical response unit” charged inside West’s home anyway.

One officer carrying a bulletproof ballistic shield fired seven times at West, who was struck three times by bullets. West, who had no criminal history and did not have access to firearms, died the next day.

West’s family told police on the scene that he suffered from mental health issues and asked them to proceed cautiously. He had barricaded himself in his basement, carrying a metal bar with tape on the end that police called a “makeshift sword.” West threw the bar onto the lawn after officers ordered him to drop it, and then officers opened fire, according to the lawsuit.

Police claimed the bar hit an officer, but there was no evidence anyone was injured by it, according to police records and the lawsuit. When West hit a cedar fence with the metal bar, an officer was on the opposite side. A police chief said that amounted to assault on an officer and “we’re calling it a felony,” according to the lawsuit. That led to dozens of officers converging on the scene.

The family’s lawyer, Tim Ford, argued that officers unnecessarily escalated the incident as part of “their militarized response.” Despite their own negotiators noting that West was calming down, officers “approached the house with a heavily armed team to breach the door to Pat’s basement workshop with a battering ram.”

Once inside, officers yelled conflicting commands and one officer shot and killed West. The lawsuit argued that the special unit “engages in paramilitary tactical operations,” but the unit “rarely trains as an entire team, and the crisis negotiators train even less than the tactical officers.”

Categories : News

Tags : Lawsuit

Pfizer Asks Judge to Intervene In Lawsuit Case Seeking COVID-19 Vaccine Information

Posted by David Brown

· February 1, 2022

Pfizer Inc. argues it should have a say in a lawsuit seeking information about its COVID-19 vaccine to ensure trade secrets and confidential commercial information are not disclosed.

A group of doctors and scientists sued the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in federal court in Texas, seeking details about the FDA’s licensing of the vaccine. Pfizer’s lawyers told U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman that the company should be allowed to join the case so it can help the FDA avoid “inappropriately” disclosing trade and corporate secrets.

The doctors and scientists who sued the FDA argue it’s too early for Pfizer to join the case because no one is challenging redactions made to the records requested in the lawsuit. The judge has ordered the quick release of hundreds of thousands of documents in the case, noting it’s “of paramount public importance.”

The FDA told the court it believes Pfizer can help the agency navigate the “unusual and indeed extraordinary circumstances of the case.” Government agencies like the FDA control the release of documents under the federal public records law, but companies like Pfizer can challenge and sue to block the release of certain information.

The federal judge will consider Pfizer’s request and is expected to address concerns raised by the FDA about his order to start releasing 55,000 pages of documents monthly in March. The FDA previously proposed releasing 500 pages a month in response to the lawsuit, a schedule that would require more than 50 years to complete. Pfizer argues its intervention in the lawsuit “will help accelerate the release of documents.”

Pfizer stated in its court filing that it supports public disclosure of the FDA records related to its vaccine “to promote transparency and the public’s confidence.”

But lawyers with Siri & Glimstad, a New York boutique firm that filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency, argued Pfizer doesn’t need the court’s permission to help the FDA. The company can support the agency’s efforts to release the records without intervening in the lawsuit. The lawyers said they wouldn’t fight Pfizer’s intervention if the “involvement is limited to prevent delay or prejudice.”

Categories : News

Tags : COVID, fda, Lawsuit, pfizer

Sports Betting Lawsuit Filed By Card-Room Operator in Washington State

Posted by David Brown

· January 25, 2022

Maverick Gaming, LLC, owner of 19 of the 44 gaming rooms in the state of Washington, recently filed a federal lawsuit against state officials claiming that Native American casinos were illegally permitted to engage in betting that was believed to be a “discriminatory tribal gaming monopoly.” This lawsuit may temporarily place all betting on hold, which has gamers and gaming room owners experiencing heightened stress levels. Gamers may have to wait until the lawsuit is settled to participate in their usual gambling, which includes roulette, craps, and more.

Sports betting was approved for tribal casinos in March of 2020 and went into effect in September of 2021. Maverick’s owner, Eric Persson, stated that he simply wants to be treated fairly and be allowed to participate in the betting just as tribal establishments are. Persson feels that the ability to participate in the same types of gambling as tribal members are would create substantially more jobs and dramatically increase the amount of revenue that is brought in at all gaming rooms.

Prior to filing the lawsuit, Persson reports having made several attempts to lobby lawmakers over the past few years, in an effort to request that sports gambling be permitted at all casinos instead of limiting it just to tribal establishments. However, after several unsuccessful attempts at obtaining a hearing, Persson decided that filing a lawsuit was the next logical step.

The executive director of the Washington Indian Gaming Association, Rebecca George, has responded to the lawsuit and feels that Maverick Gaming, LLC is making a desperate attempt to reverse a law that was put into place for an important purpose. The representative also predicted that if Persson’s lawsuit were to somehow end in success, that it could cause irreparable damage to tribal communities, but also to the general public.

George further stated that should this “unmerited” lawsuit be approved, that it would undermine the rules of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act as well as Washington state law. The executive director further explained that a well-established gaming system was agreed upon several decades ago and that approving Persson’s request could be extremely harmful and undue an agreement that was working optimally for so many years.

Categories : News

Tags : gambling, Lawsuit

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