UCLRG Status Report 6/23/13

Email Issues:

We are having email problems.

Comcast blocked us for being spammers so about 50 retirees didn’t receive the last status report. We believe we have resolved that issue.

We are also having problems with Earthlink addresses. Emails are not being returned to us as in error but they are not reaching their recipients. This issue hasn’t been resolved. If you have an Earthlink address and receive this email, please respond to it.

Several retirees have had their email accounts broken into and used to send spam. When we receive obvious spam, we notify the sender.

If you now anyone who believe they should be receiving our emails that aren’t, please have them contact us. When the mail system eats messages without generating an error, we can’t detect the problem.

Financial Situation:

With Jay Davis’s help and yours, we have reached our current funding goal. We have signed a contract with our lawyers to amend the petition to include class action allegations and then make a motion to certify the class. The contract requires a fixed payment of $75,000 for the work.  We have already placed $25,000 in an escrow account to pay for the first part of the work.  We will add funds to the escrow account to finish the class action work.

We have earmarked another $25,000 for an initial escrow payment toward discovery work. We will need to negotiate a separate contract for that work. We are also holding an additional $2,000 in reserve for operational expenses such as web site rental, tax filing fee costs, supplies and unanticipated costs.

Legal Situation:

We have had two changes in our legal representation recently. We have added William Hebert of Calvo Fisher & Jacob LLP to our legal staff to help with California class action law. You can find more about him at: http://calvofisher.com/attorneys/whebert

John Stember’s law firm has been split with John forming Stember Cohn & Davidson-Welling, LLC. Molly Davidson-Welling, who was also working on our case, is a member of the new firm. The plaintiffs have agreed that our case will move with them to the new firm. The change won’t change our relationship with John.

Plaintiff selection:

We are still in the process of selecting additional plaintiffs for the change to a class action suit. If you would like to volunteer, contact Tom Sinclair at 1-510-465-5300.