![]() ![]() These class actions sought punitive and general damages, attorney’s fees, and costs in violation of the Consumer Legal Remedies Act, common law fraud, and the Civil Rights Acts. Boxes of litigation in four file cabinets represented attacks on Safeway for alleged meat mislabeling that made sirloin look like filet mignon Australian beef represented as American cookies with insects at a Safeway distribution center overbroad injunctions at Safeway stores severely restricting picking, and many more. Within two weeks my name appeared as the attorney of record on seventeen class actions. Sandy and Dave left to handle legal battles in Northern California where they both lived. I had never been the lead attorney responsible for any class actions. The caseload was enormous involving hundreds of pages of pleadings, discovery, motions, research, and investigation reports for complex litigation. (Joan, Dan, Jerry Cohen and his brother Peter at the Gallo March) Slick attorneys from Pillsbury, Madison, and Sutro, and other major management firms in LA opposed us. I devoured the files-they were fascinating, cutting edge lawsuits of consumer and civil rights. Sandy and I appeared in court three times, with me as second. I lived at a farm worker strike house on Hobart Avenue with many UFW volunteers, took my sleeping bag, a suitcase, and two suits for court. I commuted one hundred and twenty miles to Los Angeles every Monday at the crack of dawn and returned to Bakersfield on Friday night. ( Dan, Joan and Aleksey in stroller at the Gallo March) Jerry Cohen asked me to meet with Sandy, learn about each case, and take them over to release them for other litigation. He worked in Father Chris Hartmire’s Migrant Ministry office on Olympic Boulevard, ten minutes from the Superior Court. Consumer class actions against Safeway stores outnumbered all the rest. Two civil rights attorneys, David Grable and Sandy Nathan, had filed seventeen class actions against opponents of Cesar Chavez’s movement. ![]() (Click photo to zoom) An opening occurred at the dynamic UFW in Los Angeles. Dan, Jerry Cohen, and Sandy Nathan (right) at ACLU in LA 1974 ![]()
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