News in Brief May 9 – Caribou Coffee, Coach and More

Coach Settles Wage and Hour Lawsuit

Luxury fashion retailer Coach Inc. has agreed to pay $1.75 million to settle claims that it failed to pay workers for time spent having their bags checked before taking breaks and before leaving at the end of their shifts. According to the suit, Coach employees would be required to wait for up to half an hour before a manager could check their bags and tell them to leave. The suit claimed that the time spent waiting was left unpaid and that the company violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by not providing wages for this time.

Outback Steakhouse Accused of FLSA Violations

Outback Steakhouse has been hit with a class action claiming that it wrongfully denied workers overtime pay – even when they worked more than 50 hours a week. The plaintiffs claim that they were misclassified in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Caribou Coffee Facing Unwanted Texting Suit

Caribou Coffee Co. has been hit with a proposed class action claiming that it violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by sending unsolicited text messages to thousands of consumers. Plaintiff Kristie Farnham claims that she was sent close to 50 messages over the course of two months and that the five-digit number the texts were sent from indicate that an automated system was being used– something the TCPA more than frowns upon. The suit is looking to recover between $500 and $1,500 per message on behalf of a nationwide class of consumers.

Cook Medical and Boston Scientific Facing Product Liability Lawsuits

Cook Medical Inc. and Boston Scientific Corp. are both facing product liability lawsuits after pain and blood clots were linked to their vena cava filters. The lawsuit claims that Boston Scientific’s Greenfield Vena Cava Filters and Cook’s Celect Vena Cava Filters were negligently designed and manufactured and could shift or cause clotting (the exact injury the devices were designed to prevent) after implantation.