Stericycle

RELATED DOCUMENTS

• Settlement Final Approval Order 03/08/18
• Hearing Transcript 10/26/17
• Preliminary Approval Order 10/26/17
• Memo Opinion and Order 10/26/17
• Declaration of Hon. Wayne R. Andersen ISO Motion for Preliminary Approval 10/17/17
• Declaration of Patrick Kilbourne ISO Motion for Preliminary Approval 10/17/17
• Declaration of Steve Berman ISO Motion for Preliminary Approval 10/17/17
• Exhibit 1 - Settlement Agreement 10/17/17
• Exhibit 2 - Plan of Allocation 10/17/17
• Memorandum ISO Motion for Preliminary Approval 10/17/17
• Motion for Preliminary Approval 10/17/17
• Order Granting Class Cert. and Lead Counsel 02/16/17
• Plaintiffs' Reply Memorandum ISO Motion for Class Cert. 10/27/16
• Second Amended Consolidated Complaint 03/08/16
• Motion for Class Certification 01/29/16
• Complaint 04/03/13

WHAT WAS THE LAWSUIT ABOUT?

Attorneys filed the first amended complaint on Nov. 12, 2013, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, claiming that Stericycle systematically and regularly raised prices despite agreeing to supposedly fixed-price contracts with its customers. Furthermore, the suit alleged that Stericycle failed even to inform its customers about the price increases.

The lawsuit detailed Stericycle’s electronic billing and accounting software system, called Tower, which was allegedly set to default to an 18 percent “automated price increase” (“API”) for “small-quantity” customers. According to the suit, those accounts made up 97 percent of Stericycle’s customers worldwide.

Following the imposition of the API, the suit claimed, Stericycle’s customer service department received a large volume of complaint calls and customer service representatives were told to give false reasons for the price increases in order to get customers to pay. If customers continued to refuse to pay, representatives and customer retention personnel were instructed to give “price reductions” with the goal of getting customers to pay as much of the API as possible, attorneys claimed.

Attorneys also claimed that Stericycle improperly increased prices by charging a number of fees and surcharges, labeled as fuel costs or environmental fees. However, the suit alleged that these charges were not connected to actual costs, which is why Stericycle often hid them from customers on invoices by bundling them with its flat fees.

The plaintiffs, represented by Hagens Berman, included a diverse set of Stericycle’s customers, such as a veterinary clinic in Fayetteville, New York, a clinical laboratory in California, a dental practice in Miami, Florida, a medical practice in Washington, D.C., a plastic surgery practice in California, among others.

The suit charged the defendants with breach of contract and violations of consumer protection laws across a number of states. It asked the court to award damages to a class of Stericycle’s customers impacted by the fraudulent behavior alleged in the complaint.