''Vroegh v. Eastman Kodak Company, et al.'' is a

class action A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class actio ...

complaint that alleges that the

defendants In court proceedings, a defendant is a person or object who is the party either accused of committing a crime in criminal prosecution or against whom some type of civil relief is being sought in a civil case. Terminology varies from one jurisdic ...

, " 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 California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

for the county of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

on February 20, 2004. The complaint was first filed as "''Vroegh vs. Dane Elec Corp., USA, A Foreign Corporation et al.''" When

Dane-Elec Dane-Elec Memory was a European maker and distributor of computer memory chips and storage products. The company was founded by David Haccoun and Nessim Bodokh in 1985.http://www.iwr.co.uk/crn/news/2004739/dane-elec-gears-supermarket Activities a ...

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 , trading as Fujifilm, or simply Fuji, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, operating in the realms of photography, optics, office and medical electronics, biotechnology, and chemicals. The offerings from th ...

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 Kingston Technology Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that develops, manufactures, sells and supports flash memory products, other computer-related memory products, as well as the HyperX gaming division ...

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 Memorex Corp. began as a magnetic tape, computer tape producer and expanded to become both a consumer media supplier and a major IBM plug compatible peripheral supplier. It was broken up and ceased to exist after 1996 other than as a consumer ele ...

Products, Inc. *

PNY Technologies PNY Technologies, Inc., doing business as PNY, is an American manufacturer of flash memory cards, USB flash drives, solid state drives, memory upgrade modules, portable battery chargers, computer locks, cables, chargers, adapters, and consumer an ...

, Inc. *

SanDisk Corporation SanDisk is a brand for flash memory products, including memory cards and readers, USB flash drives, solid-state drives, and digital audio players, manufactured and marketed by Western Digital. The original company, SanDisk Corporation was acquire ...

Verbatim Corporation Verbatim is a brand for storage media and flash memory products currently owned by CMC Magnetics Corporation (CMC), a Taiwanese company that is known for optical disc manufacturing. Formerly a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Chemical, the global busi ...

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 s ...

*And up to 200 defendants "to be named at a later date". The

gravamen Gravamen (from Lat. ''gravare'', to weigh down; ''gravis'', heavy), (plural gra·va·mens or gra·vam·i·na) is a complaint or grievance, the ground of a legal action, and particularly the more serious part of a charge against an accused person. ...

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 A binary prefix is a unit prefix for multiples of units. It is most often used in data processing, data transmission, and digital information, principally in association with the bit and the byte, to indicate multiplication by a power of& ...

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 LexisNexis is a part of the RELX corporation that sells data analytics products and various databases that are accessed through online portals, including portals for computer-assisted legal research (CALR), newspaper search, and consumer informa ...

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 A tort is a civil wrong that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with criminal wrongs that are punishable ...

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