For those of you who are wondering what is going on in the three lawsuits against toe-shoe companies, here’s an update.
But not really.
As a reminder, there are three cases I took a look at.
First was Adidas being sued for their claims over their adiPURE trainers. This was Rocco v. Adidas in the Eastern District of New York (all are federal lawsuits). I wrote about it here, in Adidas Sued Over Their Toe-Shoes.
This suit was dismissed on October 2 at the request of both parties. Here is what the stipulation said:
This action was filed on behalf of a putative class, but no class has been certified. Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(e), the parties state that Plaintiff’s individual claims are being resolved.
That sure looks like a settlement to me. We can guess that Adidas gave Mr. Rocco some money, but we’ll never know. If they did, it almost assuredly had a non-disclosure clause attached to the money.
Notice that there were not any news stories on this, which is fairly typical. The filing of the suit generates a flood of stories. The settlement, nothing.
About all I found was this article, “Barefoot” Running Shoes May Pose Problems for Manufacturers on a “Product Liability Monitor” blog. It also mentioned the other two cases.
I wrote about the next case, Safavi v. Vibram in the Central District of California, in Vibrams Sued. This case had a pending motion to dismiss because it mirrored another similar case in Massachusetts. What happened here is that the parties stipulated to stay the action until the Massachusetts case was settled. (“Stay the action” means that the case is put on hold.)
So, the only case that matters any more is Bezdek v. Vibram, in the District Court of Massachusetts. I wrote about that in Update on the Vibram Lawsuit. In that case they had a scheduling conference and scheduled a hearing on the Motion to Dismiss for Failure to State a Claim. As the article I referenced above notes, that hearing was scheduled for December 19, 2012. [As a reminder, a Motion to Dismiss for Failure to State a Claim claims that the plaintiff’s complaint is full of it. It says that, even if every allegation in the complaint is true, they still don’t have a leg to stand on.]
Anyways, that December 19 hearing got postponed, supposedly to yesterday. The reason was that the parties had scheduled mediation on January 9th and 10th. At this point I don’t know if the mediation was successful (like let’s say a settlement as for Rocco v. Adidas) or if the hearing really was held.
[Update: The hearing has been rescheduled for February 14, 2013.]
I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything more.
I can’t wait to get my Vibrams. Sandals with a flat bottom just don’t feel good at all. I like to FEEL the ground with no whole foot, and stop rely on my heels. I walk on the front part of my feet. My dad is getting me the Bikila EVO. I hear that they are a great transitioning shoe. Common sense tells anyone that walking in shoes that conform to the foot like a glove will be a whole different experience from.wearing a pair of ordinary running shoes. I mean come on, don’t these people walk barefoot in their house at least to see what it is like?