As we discussed earlier, class counsel agreed to a settlement over RadioShack credit-card receipt legality that would have paid themselves $1 million, but the 16-million-member class 83 thousand coupons with a face value of $10. The district court approved the settlement because (1) it held the $2.25 million spent to distribute those coupons was a class benefit and (2) the coupons weren’t “coupons.” Oral argument is scheduled this morning in the Seventh Circuit. Some time this afternoon or tomorrow, a recording of the argument will be available online.
The reply brief was fun, as plaintiffs were forced to defend an indefensible argument. From pages 5-6:
Plaintiffs rely on a logical fallacy.
It is not unfair to summarize plaintiffs’ proposed syllogism as follows:
-
-
- There exist websites that offer coupons where each coupon provides only a partial discount. PB26.
- There exists legislative history that criticizes a coupon settlement where the coupons offered provided only partial discounts. PB24-25; PB28.
- Therefore all “coupons” provide only partial discounts.
- Therefore a voucher for a free product is not a “coupon.” PB29-31.
-
The formal fallacy in plaintiffs’ logic is even more apparent in the following analogy:
-
-
- There exists a dog racing track where each racing dog is a greyhound.
- Actor Leonard Nimoy owns a dog that is a greyhound.
- Therefore all dogs are greyhounds.
- Therefore a collie is not a dog.
-
Nimoy’s most famous character had a catchphrase for this.5
5 Cf. Leonard Nimoy, Highly Illogical on Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy (Dot Records 1968). Or, as Woody Allen once said, “All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore all men are Socrates.” LOVE AND DEATH (United Artists 1975).