Posner Savages ‘Scandalous’ Settlement in Pella Case
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A class action settlement before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit appeals panel was a “scandalous” assemblage of conflicts of interest, cozy relationships, dubious calculations, ethical wrongdoing and judicial inattention, that, in the end, amounted to a decidedly raw deal for the consumers suing Pella Corp. over alleged window defects.
That was what Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner concluded about the proposed settlement in Eubank v. Pella Corp., an 8-year-old dispute, that Posner and two fellow judges threw out on Monday.
“The district court approved a class action settlement that is inequitable—even scandalous,” Posner wrote on behalf of the three-judge panel, referring to U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. “Class counsel sold out the class.”
The tangle of problems began, according to the opinion, with the selection of dentist Leonard Saltzman as the sole named plaintiff in the suit, which claimed Pella’s ProLine casement windows had a design defect that allowed water to penetrate and damage the windows’ frames.
Read original articleTags: class action settlement, Posner Savages, Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
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