general
05/24/2006, 5:20pm, EDT
Wednesday, May 24th
iPod lawsuit faces uncertainty
The man who was named as the lead plaintiff in the iPod nano "Scratch" class action lawsuit filed against Apple on October 19th of 2005, has written an open letter to the Mac community in an attempt to clarify his lack of involvement with the lawsuit. "The truth is that I never sought out nor did I ever hire David P. Meyer & Associates or Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro to represent me in any case, much less the iPod Nano Class Action suit," said Jason Tomczak. Tomczak said he received a phone call from the senior partner of David P. Meyer & Associates two days after the lawsuit was filed urgently requesting his signature on an attorney-client agreement. Tomczak says David P. Meyer & Associates and Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro violated his request for privacy, mistakenly file the iPod Nano Class Action suit with his name, failed to correct their press releases, and never offered an official apology.
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Less than half of US citizens are motivated to vote.
This is how we get runaway ambulance-chasers. And everything is more expensive to pay for litigation insurance.
SEATTLE - (May 26, 2006) – Mike McCarthy of Nemecek & Cole, counsel for Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, LLP, one of the firms representing plaintiffs in proposed class-action suits against Apple over the excessive scratching of iPod Nanos – today responded to statements made by Jason Tomczak regarding the Apple iPod Nano litigation.
In a Web site posting earlier this week, Tomczak – who has also gone by the names Jason Ellenburg and Jason Swartzer prior to 2004 – claimed that his name was listed as the named plaintiff in the suit without his permission.
“We categorically deny that the firm purposely involved Mr. Tomczak in the Apple iPod Nano litigation without his consent,” said McCarthy. “Mr. Tomczak spoke directly and exclusively with the law firm of David P. Meyer & Associates, after he posted harsh criticisms about the scratching problems with his Nano on the Internet.”
According to McCarthy, after his client was notified that Mr. Tomczak did not wish to be a party to the suit after all, the firm took immediate steps to replace him as the lead plaintiff with one of the hundreds of consumers that contacted them, wanting to join the suit.
Tomczak was listed on the suit for less than a week before an amended complaint was filed, he added.
McCarthy noted that he does not know why Mr. Tomczak is making these allegations, but he finds many of Mr. Tomczak’s actions curious, including:
• On April 20, 2006, Mr. Tomczak claimed under oath that he did not know the attorneys representing consumers were planning a lawsuit when he agreed to provide his assistance, stating he thought they were authoring a report of some sort. Yet, on October 7, 2005 Mr. Tomczak sent an e-mail to an Apple Computer attorney, warning the company that the law firm was trying to “…build a class action suit against Apple…”
• Within 15 minutes of being told his name was included on the suit, Mr. Tomczak was in contact with an out-of-state attorney friend to begin a process that culminated in his pre-lawsuit demand for $750,000 to agree not to sue Hagens Berman and others. When the demand was rejected, Mr. Tomczak filed suit.
• Mr. Tomczak states in his open letter posted throughout the Internet that the attorneys brought on to defend against Mr. Tomczak’s lawsuit delved into his personal life, objecting that the questions have nothing to do with the lawsuit. The deposition transcript shows, though, that these questions focused on why Mr. Tomczak changed his name twice, and he “willing[ly]” answered over his own attorney’s objection.
• Mr. Tomczak claims that the consumer firms are threatening “that [he] be held financially responsible for their attorney’s fees and costs.” That is inaccurate. Mr. Tomczak filed suit against the consumer firms and the iss