The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "class-action" ...
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Fen-phen Horse
A diet drug names fen-phen was pulled from the market because it was linked to heart problems, and after a $200 million settlement case the injured patients' attorneys cheated them out of their money. The attorneys used the money to buy a race horse that won the Preakness, in addition to setting up questionable charities and included the judge in the case on the payroll after he retired.
Tags: Curlin; horse racing; settlement; class action; William Gallion; Shirley Cunningham; Melbourne Mills;
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Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Jails series
The series examined individuals who have died suspiciously while in the custody of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who proclaims himself to be "America's Toughest Sheriff." Specifically, the stories examined the death of an inmate, Juan Mendoza Farias, who entered the county jail in good health and arrived at the county morgue two days later--covered with bruises and lacerations. The series also covered ongoing federal class-action lawsuit brought by the ACLU against Arpaio. During the process of that lawsuit, Arpaio lost his federal jail accreditation, which is require by Arizona law. Dickerson has been covering the lawsuit since 2007 and broke the story that the county's top lawman was himself breaking a state law by losing the accreditation of his jails. The series also investigated the care of pregnant inmates and their babies in the jail, finding that many women are malnourished and miscarry as a result of the jail conditions and food.
Tags: police misconduct; sheriff's office; pregnant inmates; prisoner abuse; Arizona
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Chop Shop
The workers of the Del Monte Fresh Produce Company in North Portland sued their employer in 2006 due to unlawfully withheld wages, the largest class-action settlement among agricultural workers in Oregon. The Willamette Week then followed up with the company in 2007 to discover if any changes had actually been made within the plant.
Tags: fruit; immigration; field; lawsuit; settlement
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Prisons' Legal Strain
Eight class-action lawsuits won by inmates rights lawyers have led to the state of California mandating "fixes for past failures that have already cost taxpayers more than $1 billion and will cost nearly $8 billion over five years." Included in that bill are improvements in the ways prisoners are treated, like health care and "general confinement conditions." An outbreak of Valley Fever at one prison is included in the coverage of these issues. One of the ways the state seeks to balance the prison budget is a plan to release 22,000 "low-risk offenders" early.
Tags: Prisons; health care; medical conditions; confinement conditions; prison health care; Valley Fever
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The Last Ghost of War
"Over three decades after the Vietnam War, deadly dioxin has worked its way into the food chain and, some argue, the gene pool, with tragic results." This documentary details several plaintiffs in a class action suit, who are "seeking justice and compensation for medical care from U.S. chemical companies."
Tags: disabled children; Agent Orange; chemical weapons; dioxin; Saigon
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Whistle Blower Outs NSA Spy Room
In San Francisco, a "secret Internet switching room packed with surveillance gear and wired to AT&T's backbone network" was interconnected to other major Internet providers. The documents detailing this setup had been sealed due to a class-action lawsuit against AT&T, in which a civil liberties group "charged that the company had helped the government eavesdrop on Americans' domestic and international Internet traffic without a warrant."
Tags: Internet; national security; government eavesdropping; Web surveillance; AT&T; NSA
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The Law Firm of Hubris Hypocrisy and Greed
The law firm of Milberg Weiss had presented itself "as a champion of the little guy" in filing securities class-action lawsuits. But the firm "has been indicted for allegedly paying three plaintiffs $11.4 million in illegal kickbacks in about 180 cases spanning 25 years - and then repeatedly lying about it to the courts." Fortune tells the story of the investigation into this firm's indiscretions, with a discussion of how the money changed hands, and the reaction to the indictment.
Tags: Milberg Weiss; Mel Weiss; Bill Lerach; Seymour the Head; illegal kickbacks; securities class-action lawsuits
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Ford Fires Investigation
The WESH I-team followed a series of fires in Ford trucks and SUV's in 2005. They found numerous vehicle fires in Florida and across the United States and obtained National Highway Transportation Safety Administration documents of vehicle fires and product testing of late model Fords. Over the course of the year, they followed class action suits against Ford, as well as a massive recall of the trucks. The I-team was the first outlet to discover the specific cause of the fires. Their findings moved Ford to expand its recall.
Tags: fire; Ford; vehicle fire; product recall; faulty wiring
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2004 Crime Reporting
This series of seven stories covered the legal and personal aftermath of the 2002 discovery of more than 300 corpses, left on the property of a crematory in Noble, GA. Many news outlets reported the bodies, but this series covered the civil and class-action lawsuits, as well as the trauma casued to the families affected by the discovery.
Tags: crime; Tri-State Crematory; class-action; local law enforcement; grief; courts
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State Oversight Lax for Vocational Schools
Students who signed up for vocational schools seeking training in computers, health care and cosmetology among other fields of study, have filed 1,177 complaints to California's Bureau for Postsecondary and Vocational Education in the past two years. Bureau administrators admitted to being passive regarding student complaints which were most often about school fraud, false advertising and failure to make refunds. Schools failed, with impugnity, to report satisfactory graduation and job-placement records as required by law. And recently the SEC has opened an investigation of one company, ITT Educational Services, for possible falsified attendance records, grades and job-placement statistics, none of which was caught by California's bureau.
Tags: Vocational training; computer schools; medical care; lack of governmental oversight; cosmetology schools; class action lawsuits