McClintic v. Lithia Motors, Inc.

Filing 38

ORDER approving class notice and claim form, by Judge Richard A Jones. Attachments: # 1 Exhibit 1 (short-form notice), # 2 Exhibit 2 (Claim or Exclusion Form), # 3 Exhibit 3 (long-form notice). (VE)

McClintic v. Lithia Motors, Inc. Class Action Litigation
No. C11-859RAJ, United States District Court for the Western District of Washington
COURT-APPROVED SUMMARY NOTICE OF SETTLEMENT
TO:

A settlement class of all persons in the United States who received one or more text messages
from or on behalf of Lithia Motors, Inc. (“Lithia”) at any time between April 21, 2007 and June
11, 2012, including all persons in the United States who received a second text message from
Lithia after attempting to opt out of receiving additional text messages.

•

The court has preliminarily approved a settlement that will pay you approximately $175 and as
much as approximately $675, depending on how many text messages you received and whether
you attempted to opt out of receiving future text messages.

•

To claim a cash award, you must make a claim on the enclosed postage-prepaid “Claim or
Exclusion Form” postmarked no later than September 14, 2012.

•

You may also exclude yourself from this lawsuit or object to the settlement. You may also do
nothing, in which case you will give up claims against Lithia but receive no cash award.

•

Participating in this settlement will cost you nothing, although you will give up your claims
against Lithia.

•

As part of the settlement, lawyers for the settlement class (“class counsel”) will request up to
$600,000, inclusive of out-of-pocket costs. You may review this request and object to it.

•

This notice only summarizes the settlement. Complete information is available at
www.TextClassSettlement.com.

•

The court will hold a hearing on October 11, 2012 at 2:00 p.m. PDT to decide whether to give
final approval to the settlement. You may attend this hearing, but you are not required to.

•

PLEASE DO NOT CALL THE COURT, LITHIA, OR CLASS COUNSEL. If you have
questions, you may contact the settlement administrator at 1-888-624-6705.

In April of 2011, Lithia or people acting on Lithia’s behalf sent text messages to the cellular
telephones of customers in portions of the United States. Kevin McClintic filed a class action against
Lithia alleging that these messages were unlawful under state and federal law.
Lithia and McClintic reached a settlement of the class action. Judge Richard A. Jones of the
United States District Court for the Western District of Washington at Seattle preliminarily approved the
settlement. You are a member of the settlement class and may receive a cash award by completing the
enclosed postage-prepaid “Claim or Exclusion Form.” If your claim is approved and you received one or
two text messages, you will receive approximately $175.00 for each text message you received. If you
tried to opt out of receiving text messages from Lithia but still received a second text, you will receive
approximately $500.00 for the second text. In the event that the number of approved claims exceeds the
amount available to pay claims (approximately $1,740,000), then payments will be reduced pro rata. If
the number of approved claims does not exhaust the amount available to pay claims, then approved claim
payments will be increased pro rata.

You can exclude yourself from the settlement by marking the appropriate box on the enclosed
postage-prepaid “Claim or Exclusion Form” and mailing it to the settlement administrator at the address
below.
You can object to the settlement by putting the reason for your objection in writing and mailing it
to the settlement administrator, postmarked no later than September14, 2012. If you submit a timely
objection, you may also attend the October 11, 2012 hearing to explain your objection to the court.
Whether you wish to claim a cash award or exclude yourself from the settlement, you must
mail your postage-prepaid “Claim or Exclusion Form” postmarked no later than September 14,
2012. If you do not mail the “Claim or Exclusion Form” by the deadline, you will be deemed to have
released (given up) all claims, but you will not receive any payment. If you wish to object to the
settlement, you must also mail your objection postmarked no later than September 14, 2012.
Please read the full Legal Notice of the proposed settlement at the settlement administrator’s
website at www.TextClassSettlement.com or by requesting a copy from the settlement administrator by
mail. The full Legal Notice contains other details regarding the settlement, including the release that you
would be giving unless you affirmatively request to be excluded from the settlement by timely submitting
the enclosed “Claim or Exclusion Form.” A summary version of the release is as follows:
This Release means that by participating in the settlement or by failing to exclude
yourself from the settlement, you will be prohibited from suing any of the released parties
for any claims relating to text messages you received that were sent on by or behalf of
Lithia from April 21, 2007, until and through June 11, 2012. The Released Parties are
Lithia Motors, Inc., and DMEautomotive LLC. When the Court gives Final Approval of
the Settlement, Lithia and DMEautomotive will be released by you for any claim related
to this Lawsuit concerning the receipt of any Text Messages sent to you by Lithia or
DMEautomotive.
If you have any questions, or if you need additional information, please contact the Settlement
Administrator:
McClintic v. Lithia Motors, Inc.
c/o GCG
P.O. Box 9786
Dublin, OH 43017-5686
1-888-624-6705
Please do not contact the court, Lithia, or class counsel.

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