Miscellaneous

4,896 opt-outs in Sears tippy-stove class action

By Walter Olson, Ted Frank, and David Nieporent

An extraordinary number of consumers asked to be excluded from the class action settlement over Sears kitchen stoves that are allegedly too prone to tip when an opened oven door is leaned on. With humor quaint, the Chamber-backed Madison County Record reports on the reaction of class action lawyer Stephen Tillery:

At a Jan. 15 settlement hearing, Tillery interpreted the widespread rejection as a sign that he drafted a successful class notice.

"People read their mail," he told Circuit Judge Barbara Crowder. "There was no problem with notice."

(Steve Korris, "Consumer groups 'ecstatic' over Sears settlement, despite opt out of 4,896 stove owners", Madison County Record, Jan. 24).

Plaintiff's attorneys are slated to pocket $17 million in fees, which Tillery describes as modest compared to "the fund of monies made available to the class" by the troubled retailer, which he estimates at $500 million. "Made available" is of course a term of art, and it is anyone's guess as to how many class members will actually take the time and trouble to file for refunds of up to $100 on old stoves. Inevitably, however, last year's Sears wheel alignment class settlement comes to mind (see May 17 and Jul. 31, 2007). In that settlement the lawyers projected that consumers would redeem millions of dollars in coupons (and used that as the basis for their fee calculations), but the actual sum redeemed turned out to be $2,402.

Full post as published by Overlawyered on January 31, 2008 (boomark / email).