Whether it’s a mortgage scam, Fair Debt Collection Practice Act, Fair Credit Reporting Act, or just plain-vanilla fraud case, Barrett Law Group, PA can help you out. If you have a consumer issue that you would like us to evaluate, please get in touch. Some of the consumer fraud cases that our lawyers have worked on are listed below.
On December 16, 2004, Don Barrett was appointed one of six members of the Class Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee in the In Re Neurontin Marketing and Sales Practices Litigation (MDL No. 1629). The case of an individual plaintiff (Kaiser Foundation Health Plan) against the defendant Pfizer, Inc., was tried over a five week period in February and March, 2010 in Boston, and Mr. Barrett was a member of the trial team for Kaiser. That trial resulted in a jury verdict for plaintiff on its civil RICO claim in the amount of $47.34 million, which will be trebled under the RICO statute. This is believed to be the first civil RICO verdict ever rendered against a major pharmaceutical company. As a result of Mr. Barrett’s work on the case, he was selected by the Public Justice Foundation as a finalist for the 2011 Trial Lawyer of the Year Award. In 2014, a settlement was reached in the litigation and Defendant Pfizer, Inc. agreed to pay $325 million to resolve all claims.
In 2003, Don Barrett and other members of BLG were co-lead trial counsel in a national class action in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, entitled Austin, et al. v. Lehman Brothers, Inc., et al. After five weeks of deliberation, the jury on June 16, 2003, returned a verdict for the plaintiff class. According to the Los Angeles Times, “the verdict marked the first time a financial backer of an abusive lender has been held liable, carving out a new area of vulnerability for Wall Street.” The Austin v. Lehman Brothers trial rated a chapter in the recently published book The Monster: How a Gang of Predatory Lenders and Wall Street Bankers Fleeced America – and Spawned a Global Crisis, by Michael W. Hudson (Henry Holt & Company, New York City, 2010).
On November 22, 2004, Don Barrett was appointed Plaintiffs’ Co-lead Counsel in In Re High Sulfur Content Gasoline Products Liability Litigation (MDL No. 1632), by U.S. District Judge Ivan L.R. Lemelle of the Eastern District of Louisiana. A $100 million plus settlement was finally approved by the Court in September of 2006.