Orkin wins a round
November 13, 2007 at 3:27 pm by John F. Sugg in NewsA lawsuit against Atlanta’s home-grown termite control giant, Orkin, was dealt a serious setback earlier this month when the Court of Appeals of Georgia threw out class action status for the litigation.
A class action lawsuit allows a large number of people who have suffered similar injuries from the same company to band together and try their cases together. Former Gov. Roy Barnes and another lawyer in his firm, John Salter, had won class action status in August 2006. Their clients, Ernest and Dolores Warren, claim Orkin failed to abide by its contractual promises to reinspect and retreat their home, and that the company concealed termite damage. As in other states where Orkin is under legal attack, Barnes says thousands of Georgia homes and businesses have been cheated by the pest control company.
The appellate court reversed the 2006 ruling, deciding that each Orkin case would have to prove a separate set of circumstances, thereby making it ineligible for a class action. Barnes and Salter intend to appeal that decision to the Georgia Supreme Court.
At the heart of the disputes throughout the Southeast — where juries have awarded a number of big verdicts against Orkin, including one in Alabama for $81 million (later reduced by a judge) — are charges that the company knowingly did not keep its promises.
For example, Orkin had promised to reinspect homes each year. But, former employees testified that reinspection forms often contained forged customer signatures. One memo from Orkin executives that I disclosed in previous news accounts stated: “[T]here have been instances of fraud, theft and forgery in the company. … We are also seeing far too many instances … [of] finding customers being charged for services not rendered.”
For more on the Orkin lawsuits, read this and this.
Leave a Reply