Hagens Berman filed a class-action lawsuit against Stericycle Inc. alleging that the medical waste disposal company misled its customers, including veterinary clinics, medical clinics and medical labs regarding pricing.
The first amended complaint, filed Nov. 12, 2013, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, claims that Stericycle systematically and regularly raised prices despite agreeing to supposedly fixed-price contracts. Furthermore, the suit alleges that Stericycle failed even to inform its customers about the price increases.
The lawsuit details 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 claims, 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 claim.
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 claims 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 in the case, include a diverse set of Stericycle’s customers, such as a veterinary clinic in Fayetteville, N.Y., a clinical laboratory in California, a dental practice in Miami, FL., a medical practice in Washington, D.C., and a plastic surgery practice in California, among others.
The suit charges the defendants with breach of contract and violations of consumer protection laws across a number of states. It asks the court to award damages to a class of Stericycle’s customers impacted by the fraudulent behavior alleged in the complaint.
CASE TIMELINE
Settlement funds totaling $295 million were mailed Aug. 28, 2018, to 254,400 class members.
A second and final settlement payment was mailed on May 31, 2019 to all eligible Class Members who received and cashed their first settlement payment. If you received and cashed your first settlement payment and did not receive your second check or would like to request that your second check be reissued, please email [email protected] or send a written request to:
Stericycle Class Action
c/o GCG
PO Box 10515
Dublin, OH 43017-1515.
All settlement payments Issued prior to May 31, 2019 are now void and cannot be cashed. Under the terms of the Settlement Agreement, the Settlement Administrator is no longer able to reissue settlement checks that were issued prior to May 31, 2019.
Court certifies nationwide consumer class in Stericycle overpricing scheme lawsuit, names Hagens Berman lead counsel
Hagens Berman, lead counsel in the class-action lawsuit against Stericycle, filed to certify a class of customers who allege the company violated contracts and defrauded them through automated price increases.
Hagens Berman appointed Interim Lead Counsel in class-action lawsuit against Stericycle
