Klafter Lesser LLP

03/31/2025

This is what NY needs! Now, more than ever, consumers need protection from those companies that break the laws and rip-off consumers. Particularly since the present administration in Washington seems to believe that protecting consumers falls way down below protecting voracious law-breaking companies. Those businesses that do follow the law should also be in favor of this!

March 27, 2025 - New York State Attorney General Letitia James is pushing legislation updating New York's laws governing unfair and deceptive practices. We explore what these consumer...

01/06/2025

FINAL APPROVAL OF WAGE & HOUR FLSA SETTLEMENT REACHED AGAINST BURLINGTON STORES

KL is pleased to announce that on December 23, KL's $5.2 million settlement on behalf of 828 Burlington Stores assistant store managers received final approval by the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. The case was Peyton-Fernandez v. Burlington Stores, Inc., No. 22-608 (AMD).

10/06/2024

KLAFTER LESSER FILES WAGE CLAIM LAWSUIT AGAINST HANNAFORD SUPERMARKETS

On October 2, 2024, with co-counsel, KL filed a collective and class action alleging that Hannaford Supermarkets had failed to pay mid-level managerial positions overtime as required under federal and state law. The lawsuit is filed in federal court in Portland Maine and asserts that Hannaford had purposely misclassified specific department and operations managers as exempt from overtime pay even though they routinely did the same work as regular employees who were eligible for overtime pay. Contact Klafter Lesser if you are a present or former Hannaford employee interested in learning more about the lawsuit.

They'll have to work 45 hours per week to earn the same salary they got for 40 as the company addresses a labor shortage.

11/07/2023

Time to free New York from the scammers, fraudsters, liars and cheats.

The Consumer and Small Business Protection Act would ban unfair business practices.

10/04/2023

KL FILES CLASS ACTION AGAINST NEW YORK CITY ALLEGING IT HAS COLLECTED MILLIONS IN IMPROPER BOOTING AND TOWING FEES

New York City likes to get fees for booting cars. And it likes to get fees from towing cars. And it has set up its system so that car owners often cannot avoiding paying both. In doing so, the City has violated the Constitution and New York City’s own laws. That’s the basic claim in the class action KL has filed against the City.

Specifically, the lawsuit challenges the New York Police Department’s policy of requiring car owners to travel to a tow pound in either the Bronx, Brooklyn, or Queens, as designated in the notice on the car provided with the boot, within two hours of the booting or have to pay both a $185 boot fee and a $185 towing in order to get their car back. KL’s lawsuit alleges that this policy violates New York City Administrative Code § 19-169.2(h), which requires that the vehicle owner be permitted to pay any charge for booting at the location where such vehicle was booted, and also 34 TRCNY §4- 08(9)(v), which requires that a vehicle owner whose vehicle is booted be afforded a reasonable opportunity to challenge the imposed boot fee prior to the towing. The case further claims that this NYPD policy violates the Fourteenth, Fourth and Eighth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The Locks Law Firm is co-counsel with KL on this case. A copy of the Complaint can be found here:

10/02/2023

KL Obtains Preliminary Approval of Carry-on Bag Fee Settlement with Spirit Airlines

On September 21, 2023, the Court presiding over the class action brought against Spirit Airlines that KL (together with the Hermina Law Firm) has been prosecuting, that challenges Spirit’s imposition of carry-on fees to certain passengers, preliminarily approved a settlement in the amount of $8.25 million. The proposed settlement is on behalf of the following Class certified by the Court: "first-time fliers of Spirit who purchased their Spirit flight through one of the following six on-line travel agents (“OTAs”) – Expedia, Travelocity, Kiwi, CheapOair, CheapTickets, and BookIt – during the period of August 31, 2011, through May 3, 2017, and whose claims are governed by U.S. law."

The proposed settlement provides for Class Members to receive up to 75% of the carry-on bag fee they paid. The actual percentage of the carry-on fee paid that will be refunded will depend on the amount of Court approved payments for attorneys’ fees and for reimbursement of expenses and for service awards to the named plaintiffs, and the number of timely and valid Claims submitted.

In order to be eligible to share in the proposed settlement, if finally approved by the Court, you would have to submit a Claim Form no later than January 10, 2024. The Court has scheduled a final approval hearing for Monday, December 11, 2023, at 9:30 a.m. EST, at the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, 225 Cadman Plaza East, Brooklyn, New York. You do not need to nor have to attend, but you may at your own expense. The Claim Form and a Notice containing detailed information about the proposed settlement of this class action lawsuit and what rights Class Members have regarding the proposed settlement can be found at the following website:

03/31/2022

KL Wins Class Certification and Defeats Spirit Airline’s Motion for Summary Judgment

In a significant March 29, 2022, opinion, Judge Eric R. Komitee has upheld KL’s case against Spirit over its carry-on fees and certified it to proceed as a class action. Our clients’ claims are that Spirit breached the terms of its contract to fly them by charging separately for carry-on bags. Judge Komitee both denied Spirit’s motion for summary judgment – meaning, he concluded that Plaintiffs’ claims are entitled to he heard by a jury – and he certified a class consisting of first-time Spirit fliers who purchased their Spirit flight through Expedia,Travelocity, Kiwi, CheapOair, CheapTickets, and BookIt from August 31, 2011 through May 3, 2017. There could be a million or more individuals of this Class who are entitled to receive notice of this action. KL is proud, with our co-counsel, to be representing these many Spirit flyers in this consumer class action.

After notice goes out, the case will move toward trial. At trial, the focus will squarely be on whether, in purchasing the right to fly on a Spirit flight on a particular day and time from point A to point B, a reasonable consumer would have understood they were agreeing that Spirit could charge separately for a carry-on.

A copy of the decision can be found here:

03/08/2022

Final Burlington Coat Distribution.

Klafter Lesser is now completing the final distribution of $12.5 million to its clients in Goodman v. Burlington Coat Company, a collective and class action settlement on behalf of over 1,500 present and former Assistant Store Managers at Burlington Coat claiming that they had wrongfully been denied overtime pay. the supplemental payout will bring the average per person to these clients to about about $8,000 per person. Getting to this point took almost a decade of hard-fought litigation and Klafter Lesser is pleased that the final payments to the settlement class members is now being completed.

06/11/2021

Report Issued in KL Case That Made a Difference -- In 2009, Klafter Lesser obtained a $24.5 million in a class settlement over historical discriminatory life insurance sale practices by John Hancock. Out of the settlement, we founded the Norflet Progress Fund to distribute $15.3 million in cy pres organizations supporting African-American communities across America. The impact that was made by the Norflet Progress Fund has been set forth in this report:

05/11/2021

KL Wins Federal Appellate Decision Upholding Late-Filed Mortgage Satisfaction Claims

On May 20, 2021, a year after Klafter Lesser partner Seth Lesser argued before the Court, the United States Court of Appeals issued a significant 2-1 decision upholding the claims in Maddox v Bank of New York. This class action seeks to remedy the Bank of New York’s failure to timely record mortgage satisfactions in accordance with New York State law, leaving individuals who paid off their mortgages in danger of negative credit reports. The specific legal issue was whether plaintiffs had standing under Article III of the United States Constitution in order to pursue these claims in federal court. The district court had ruled they did but had concluded the matter to be a “close question” and certified it to the Court of Appeals for addressing. The decision by the Second Circuit is a resounding success for plaintiffs in the Second Circuit who are pursuing claims, including for statutory damages, under many federal and state consumer protection laws. A copy of the decision can be found hee: http://klafterlesser.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2021.05.10-Second-Circuit-Affirmance-Maddox-v-BONY.pdf.

05/01/2021

KL Wins Constitutional Class Certification for Discrimination Against Non-DC Non-Profits

Klafter Lesser has won class certification in an unusual class action brought against Washington D.C. for un-Constitutionally discriminating against non-profit organizations that do not have offices in D.C. Under D.C. law, a non-profit located in the District is exempt from paying sales and hotel taxes in the District. But non-profits from anywhere else who hold conventions in D.C. do have to pay sales and hotel taxes. On behalf of the American Philosophical Association and the American Anthropological Association, KL asserts that this discrimination in favor of its D.C.-based non-profits violated the Commerce Cause of the Constitution and, with co-counsel Kellog, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick, has been fighting for two years to get the claims in the case certified as a class action. On April 30, 2021, the Superior Court of the District of Columbia agreed with KL and certified the case as a class action on behalf of all non-profits that are not located in D.C. and who held conventions at or otherwise paid sales and hotel taxes at all the major DC hotels and who continue to do so until the constitutionality of the D.C. law at issue is determined. American Philosophical Association v. District of Columbia, Case No. 2019 CVT 000003.