Fazio | Micheletti LLP (FM) is a boutique firm that prosecutes complex cases, with an emphasis on

class actions. 

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FM's principals have served as lead or co-lead counsel in class actions involving fraud, false advertising, concealment of defects in the sale of products, and breaches of duty in the consumer-protection and corporate contexts. Many of those cases have been featured in national news media.

 

For example, after we obtained a historic Statement of Decision after a bifurcated class-action trial against Ford Motor Company that took a total of nine months to complete. The court ordered Ford to conduct the first (and only) judicially-mandated automotive recall in U.S. history. The case was eventually resolved by a class-action settlement valued at $2.7 billion.

 

We obtained another outstanding result in a case against Apple Inc., in which FM negotiated a $53 million cash settlement that provided class members with an average recovery of 117% of their actual losses. And, in a case in which the Center for Science in the Public Interest joined FM as co-lead class counsel, FM negotiated a $23 million settlement in a false-advertising case against the manufacturer of Airborne Health "cold" supplements, which was featured in Time magazine's Too-Good-to-Be-True Product Hall of Fame and satirized on The Colbert Report.

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FM has also represented consumer-advocacy organizations as clients in matters before trial and appellate courts. For example, FM represented the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) in a case involving an egg producer that sold packages of eggs depicting hens roaming freely on an expansive green field and stated that the hens were “raised in wide open spaces in Sonoma Valley, where they are free to ‘roam, scratch, and play.’” In actuality, the hens were crammed in covered sheds with no outdoor access, and although the eggs were sold at premium prices, defendant was still able to undercut the prices of competitors by raising the hens in conditions that cost far less than the conditions that were advertised to the public. The case was resolved by a settlement that required the egg producer to modify its facilities to conform the conditions depicted in its advertising. ALDF awarded FM with its Advancement in Animal Law Pro Bono Achievement Award for its work on this case.

 

At the appellate level, FM represented Friends of the Earth as amicus curiae in Graham v. DaimlerChrysler Corp., a landmark case in which the California Supreme Court firmly established that a plaintiff who changed a defendant's behavior through litigation is entitled to recover attorney fees by way of the catalyst theory. FM also represented Public Citizen and the Center for Auto Safety as amici curiae, in In re Tobacco II Litigation, in which the California Supreme Court ruled that claims of deceptive marketing and false advertising could be prosecuted under California's consumer-protection laws without having to demonstrate how each and every class member was affected by the defendant's conduct and without having to prove actual reliance in accordance with common law fraud principles.

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More recently, FM served as co-lead counsel in a class action against Toyota Motor Corporation and Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. The case was found to have catalyzed Toyota to conduct two separate Safety Recalls involving more than 1.1 million 2010 to 2015 Prius hatchbacks and 2012 to 2017 Prius v wagons for the purpose of correcting a defect in those vehicles' Intelligent Power Modules (IPMs). The IPMs were inordinately susceptible to thermal stress, which could cause the vehicles to suddenly decelerate or stall while being driven. FM then negotiated a settlement with Toyota valued at approximately $200 million -- which included (among other things) the creation of a $20 million cash fund for the benefit of the class, a 20-year warranty with no mileage limitation, and free towing and rental cars if the IPM or hybrid inverter assembly in those vehicles malfunctions or fails in the future. The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California granted final approval of the settlement on February 3, 2023. More information about the lawsuit can be found here.

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For over a quarter century, FM has prevailed in high-stakes cases against some of the largest law firms in the country because we know what it takes to win -- and our track-record proves it.

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