Fazio | Micheletti LLP (FM) is a boutique litigation firm that specializes in class actions and other forms of complex litigation. 

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FM's principals have served as lead or co-lead counsel in class actions against some of the largest corporations in the world, prosecuting claims of false advertising, concealment of defects in the sale of products, and breaches of duty in the consumer-protection and corporate contexts. Many of those cases have been featured in national news media.

 

For example, after we obtained a historic Statement of Decision in the wake of a bifurcated class-action trial against Ford Motor Company, the court ordered Ford to conduct the first (and only) judicially-mandated automotive recall in U.S. history. The case was eventually resolved by a class-action settlement valued at $2.7 billion. We obtained another outstanding result in a case against Apple Inc., in which FM negotiated a $53 million cash settlement in which class members actually recovered more than 100% of their losses. And in a case in which the Center for Science in the Public Interest joined FM as co-lead class counsel, we negotiated a $23 million settlement with the manufacturer of Airborne Health supplements, which was featured in Time magazine's Too-Good-to-Be-True Product Hall of Fame and satirized on The Colbert Report.

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FM has also represented consumer advocacy organizations as clients at the trial and appellate levels. For example, FM represented Friends of the Earth as amicus curiae before the California Supreme Court in Graham v. DaimlerChrysler Corp., a landmark case that firmly established that a plaintiff who changed a defendant's behavior through litigation is entitled to recover attorney fees by way of the catalyst theory. And in In re Tobacco II Litigation, FM represented Public Citizen and the Center for Auto Safety (with which FM's principals co-authored a leading treatise on automotive design liability) as amici curiae, in which the California Supreme Court issued another landmark ruling that permitted plaintiffs to pursue claims of deceptive marketing and false advertising under California's consumer-protection laws without having to demonstrate how each and every class member was affected by the defendant's conduct and without having to prove actual reliance in accordance with common law fraud principles.

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More recently, FM served as co-lead counsel in a class action against Toyota Motor Corporation and Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. The case was found to have catalyzed Toyota to conduct two separate Safety Recalls involving more than 1.1 million 2010 to 2015 Prius hatchbacks and 2012 to 2017 Prius v wagons for the purpose of correcting a defect in those vehicles' Intelligent Power Modules (IPMs). The IPMs were inordinately susceptible to thermal stress, which could cause the vehicles to suddenly decelerate or stall while being driven. FM then negotiated a settlement with Toyota valued at approximately $200 million -- which included (among other things) the creation of a $20 million cash fund for the benefit of the class, a 20-year warranty with no mileage limitation, and free towing and rental cars if the IPM or hybrid inverter assembly in those vehicles malfunctions or fails in the future. The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California granted final approval of the settlement on February 3, 2023. More information about the lawsuit and how class members may make a claim can be found here.

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FM has taken on, and beaten, some of the best attorneys and the biggest law firms in the country because we know what it takes to win

-- and our track-record proves it.

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