''Vroegh v. Eastman Kodak Company, et al.'' is a class action complaint that alleges that the defendants, " marketing, advertising and/or packaging their

Flash Memory Flash memory is an electronic non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for the NOR and NAND logic gates. Both us ...

Cards and Flash Memory Drives, Defendants misrepresent the size of the memory storage contained in the Flash Memory Cards and Flash Memory Drives."Third Amended Complaint
Vroegh TAC The complaint accuses the defendants of "

false advertising False advertising is defined as the act of publishing, transmitting, or otherwise publicly circulating an advertisement containing a false claim, or statement, made intentionally (or recklessly) to promote the sale of property, goods, or servic ...

unfair business practices Unfair business practices encompass fraud, misrepresentation, and oppressive or unconscionable acts or practices by business, often against consumers, and are prohibited by law in many countries. In the European Union, each member state must reg ...

breach of contract Breach of contract is a legal cause of action and a type of civil wrong, in which a binding agreement or bargained-for exchange is not honored by one or more of the parties to the contract by non-performance or interference with the other party ...

fraud In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compens ...

, deceit and/or misrepresentation, and violation of the California Consumers Legal Remedy Act".

Facts

The complaint, case number CGC-04-428953, was originally filed in

Superior Court In common law systems, a superior court is a court of general jurisdiction over civil and criminal legal cases. A superior court is "superior" in relation to a court with limited jurisdiction (see small claims court), which is restricted to civil ...

of the State of California for the county of San Francisco on February 20, 2004. The complaint was first filed as "''Vroegh vs. Dane Elec Corp., USA, A Foreign Corporation et al.''" When Dane-Elec settled and was dismissed from the case on March 15, 2005, Eastman Kodak became the first defendant. Another plaintiff intervened in January 2004. The complaint originally named the following companies as defendants: *Dane-Elec Corp. USA * Fujifilm USA, Inc. *

Eastman Kodak Company The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...

* Kingston Technology Corporation *

Lexar Media Lexar Media, Inc. is a Chinese brand of flash memory products manufactured by the Chinese company Longsys. The Lexar "JumpDrive" trademark was often used synonymously with the term USB flash drives when the technology was first adopted. Histo ...

, Inc. * Memorex Products, Inc. * PNY Technologies, Inc. * SanDisk Corporation * Verbatim Corporation *

Viking Components Incorporated Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

*And up to 200 defendants "to be named at a later date". The gravamen of the complaint is the alleged loss in hard drive capacity that is caused by the difference between the measurements calculated using the binary prefix and

SI prefix The International System of Units, known by the international abbreviation SI in all languages and sometimes pleonastically as the SI system, is the modern form of the metric system and the world's most widely used system of measurement. E ...

systems.

Settlement

On August 16, 2006, there was a proposed final judgement on a proposed settlementProposed Final Judgement
Vroegh Proposed Final Judgement and on November 1, 2006, LexisNexis reported in their "California Legal News" that the settlement agreement calls for $2.4M in attorney fees.California Legal News
LexisNexis The settlement was finally approved on or about November 21, 2006. The settlement provided for either a refund of 5% of the original purchase price or a 10% coupon on future purchases. The refund amount is in excess of the amount of memory that was allegedly missing. Accordingly, the settlement made available to class members refunds in excess of $100 million. Five defendants, including Dane Elec, settled the case on a non-class basis. The other five defendants, Eastman Kodak Company, Fuji Photo Film U.S.A., Inc., Lexar Media, Inc., PNY Technologies, Inc., and SanDisk Corporation, settled on a class basis.Party Contacts
Flash Memory Settlement

Attorneys for the plaintiff

The law firm of Gutride Safier, LLP and Milberg Weis

have been involved in other significant class action lawsuits in California from which they applied for significant fee payments. Such fee requests are often cited as unreasonable in that they call into question the true motivation of the attorneys, as was the case
Reason Magazine Online with these particular attorneys. Two of the most notable class actions brought by Gutride Safier are the Chavez v. Netflix class action that was settled (but is currently on appealCalifornia Appellate Courts
Chavez v. Netflix Inc. Appeal Status) when the defendants agreed to pay Gutride Safier $2.5 millionNetflix Settles Class Action Lawsuit
BetaNews and the Orin Safier v. Western Digital Corporation class action that was settled when the defendants agreed to pay Gutride Safier $500,000.Western Digital Settles Capacity Suit
BetaNews The Western Digital case involved the same "binary vs decimal calculation" issue as the Vroegh v. Eastman Kodak case. In each of these cases, the named plaintiff was awarded $1000 to $2000 "''for their time and effort''"."What are the Attorneys’ Fees for the Case?"
Vroegh FAQ #13 Even though Netflix agreed to pay $2.5 million, the Judge in the case ultimately awarded Gutride Safier approximately $1.3 million.
Mercury News - AP Wire On June 23, 2003, Gutride and Safier brought a Business Tort complaint against numerous defendants, including: Amazon.com, Target Corporation, Wal-Mart Corporation, Dell, Good-Guys, and many others for false and deceptive advertising of MP3 players on the same "binary vs decimal calculation" issue.Leffert v. Amazon.com, Inc - Case Number: CGC-03-421769 Ultimately, all of the defendants settled.

References

{{Eastman Kodak Kodak Class action lawsuits

Facts

Settlement

Attorneys for the plaintiff

See also

References