Georgia Law Blog

Orkin Class Action - What's Bugging You?

     The Aug. 23, 2006 Atlanta Journal Constitution (D-1) included an article about an elderly Marietta, Georgia couple who have been fighting in court against Orkin Exterminating and its parent company Rollins, Inc. for 5 years because they said Orkin failed to live up to its contract to provide inspections and treatments to keep their house safe from termites.  Their case and the struggle of their attorney to recover against Orkin and Rollins, was helped this week by the Judge’s decision to expand the scope of the case to include other similar claims against these companies.

     Now up to 70,000 Orkin customers will have a method to seek some compensation for failed treatments, and improper inspections that have occurred since 1995.   The Judge’s approval of a class action status for this case allows many Georgians to obtain some recovery for their claims which otherwise would have been ignored because their individual claims were too small to find someone to fight for them. 

     While politicians, corporate leaders and the Chamber of Commerce frequently complain about class action abuses, the truth is that class action lawsuits are an important and often the only way for many small claims to be handled and to gain meaningful attention from corporate defendants.  When these politicians and companies call out for lawsuit “reform,” what they are really doing is trying to block thousands of average citizens with small or medium sized losses from gaining any recovery for their losses.  That should bug you.

Get Rid Of The Lawyers?

     President Bush, Congressional leaders, the Chamber of Commerce and other politicians are busy making speeches attacking the jury system.  You also see doctors, corporations and insurance companies paying for lots of advertisements to do the same thing.  But stop and think how your world would be different, if people didn’t have lawyers to stand up and fight for them.  Many safety issues were fought for and won by the efforts of lawyers.

     Baby cribs used to have rails that were spaced far apart, and tragically, infants slipped through them and were injured or killed.  Now, those cribs are made with the rails close together.  Gas tanks on some cars used to explode into flames when hit, but are now built to avoid that tragic result.  These changes didn’t happen by themselves.  Time and time again, lawyers, fighting for persons and families, brought cases that changed things for the better.

     A few years ago, lawyers in our firm participated in a case against a bus manufacturer, which had a dangerous design to the seals on the door.  This defect caught the strap of a young girl’s backpack as she exited the bus, and resulted in her being dragged and killed. 

This case was similar to several earlier cases in the mid and late 1990’s across the country that fought for safer bus designs because children were being injured and killed getting off the bus because the hand rails had snagged or caught drawstrings on clothing and straps on backpacks.  Many of these design errors have now been corrected by product recalls.

     The issue of school bus safety was highlighted by the Atlanta Journal Constitution, (page MS1) on Aug. 27, 2006 in a story that outlined various innovations such as safer controls and sensors, to help the driver know if a child was in the “danger zone” outside the bus. The article also focused on the new flatter design of the front hood of buses and how that improved visibility.  However, the article failed to tell the reader anything about why those changes occurred.  The role of lawyers and lawsuits was never mentioned.

     In contrast, the role of lawyers was noted in the Aug 27, 2006 New York Times article about Ford Motor Company’s recalling of millions of vehicles because a defective switch was believed to have been causing vehicle fires.  The article noted that multiple lawsuits had been filed against Ford for fires that had caused damages and deaths.  It also highlighted the role of government safety investigators in pinpointing the cause of these fires.  Ford’s spokeswoman continued to deny Ford was at fault for these claims. 

     Before you fall for the current campaign against lawyers and lawsuits, ask yourself how you would do in fighting a Ford Motor Company, or some big insurance company on your own.