Flush With Cash From Clorox: Free Money For Cincinnati

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Clorox has set aside $7 million to repay Americans who think the company's automatic toilet bowl cleaner with bleach made their plumbing leak. You can collect up to $30 by filling out an online claim form that is available here. It doesn't seem to ask for proof you used Clorox in your toilet bowl. But you have to say it was there "to the best of my knowledge and belief." It's pretty much free cash for the asking. The checks will start landing in mailboxes by July 2011. Now $30 won't put a kid through college or pay the mortgage, but it could help fill a gas tank.

Clorox is putting up the cash to settle a federal class-action lawsuit filed in California four years ago. The lawsuit said the drop-in tablets Clorox customers used in their toilet tanks contained highly corrosive chemicals that attacked plastic and rubber components. The seals would supposedly fail. When they did, water would leak and the toilet had to be repaired. The lawsuit said Clorox had done testing "and yet sold the product by telling its customers that the CATBC would not harm the plumbing." Clorox denies all that, but the company decided not to fight: "Nonetheless, Clorox has concluded that further defense of the action would be protracted and expensive, and that it is desirable that the action be fully and finally settled."

So Clorox still maintains the tablets are safe when used as directed. The Daily Bellwether wonders how much water went down the drain. Could cities with waterworks plants filed lawsuits citing the same documents that turned up in the consumer case? If the commodes leaked, the cities had to pump in extra fresh water to make up the losses.

Ohio's DISH Network TV Technicians: Working Hard For No Money?

COLUMBUS (TDB) -- Is there workplace static coming into the picture? A federal judge in Ohio this week conditionally certified a class-action against Digital Dish, a privately owned regional service provider for satellite TV company DISH Network of Englewood, Colo. Technicians who installed, maintained and repaired digital satellite equipment -- primarily dishes and receivers -- contend they worked more than 40 hours a week but did not receive overtime pay. The workers say they were told that "as a matter of company policy" they would be terminated if they recorded working more than 40 hours in a week.

At this point, the lawsuit appears to cover the technicians who worked in Ohio, and portions of Kentucky, Indiana and West Virginia. Court records indicate Digital Dish has about 300 satellite TV installers on its payroll in the region at any given time. The records also indicate they worked long days:

"Technicians typically receive their next day's work orders in the evening and pre-call customers to schedule service appointments in advance. The Digital Dish warehouses open at approximately 7:30 a.m. each day. When a technician arrives at one of Digital Dish's warehouses in the morning [apparently around 6:30 a.m.] he pick up the DISH Network equipment necessary to complete his day's assigned work orders. Prior to leaving the Digital Dish warehouses, technicians generally attach the mounting structure, arms, and certain low-noise block feedhorns to satellite dishes to make more space in their trucks. Further, technicians often spend fifteen to twenty minutes downloading the necessary programs to the receivers set for delivery, so they can save time once they arrive at a costumer's home.

"With the equipment in hand, each technician then sets out to complete his day's schedule. In general, a technician's primary task is the delivery and installation of DISH Network equipment, but technicians also do repairs, upgrades, and returns. Each technician completes approximately two to three installations per day. After the technician completes a service call, he secures the customer's approval on a DISH Network Customers Service Agreement and (in the case of satellite receiver equipment installations) activates the customer's satellite subscription by contacting DISH Network."

U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley said the case can go forward as a class-action for the time being. He said some of the company's legal moves to stop the class-action side-stepped the workers' contention Digital Dish "was officially putting one policy on paper, but unofficially threatening and enforcing a separate practice."

The case is Dominic Mussarra, et al v. Digital Dish Inc; No. 2:05-cv-545 Southern District of Ohio. Judge Marbley said the satellite technicians "clearly define the proposed class and their declarations in support claim first-hand knowledge of illegal practices being imposed on technicians from multiple facilities. Applying a lenient standard to the pleadings and affidavits submitted in this case, the Court finds conditional certification appropriate."