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No One Joins Class Action Lawsuit Against RR Auction; Court Rejects

We received a press release from RR Auction regarding a hearing today in Santa Barbara, California on the Johnson v. RR Auction class action lawsuit. We'll have a full report on the hearing later today, so I'll just post the first couple of paragraphs:

Lawyers for Michael Johnson, the son of an oil industry tycoon, effectively admitted defeat today in Santa Barbara County Superior Court after Judge Donna Geck issued a tentative ruling denying Johnson’s motion for class action certification in a lawsuit filed in October 2012 in which Johnson alleged that $84,000 in autographed items he’d purchased through R&R were later found to be inauthentic.

In what R&R’s attorney’s predict will be a fatal blow to Johnson’s suit, now on its second set of lawyers, Judge Geck issued a six-page tentative ruling Wednesday denying class action status to the case “Because of the findings that the class is not ascertainable, the class is not numerous and individual issues predominate over common issues.”

Tags: michael johnson, r&r, rr auction, rrauctionlawsuit.com

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Yes makes sense, I checked the blog, his press release states that he is indeed going forward with the case and is pursuing at least $1.3 million.

Who is Karen Burris?  Did you read that letter?  Her claims are most alarming.

That's good for Mr Johnson. By issuing such a press release, he's now legally obligated (to his attorneys and RR) to file the suit. If he doesn't follow through, depending on California & municipality laws, he might be open to being sued by his current attorneys and RR for false representation of legal matters (or something to that effect).

I have no idea who Karen Burris is, but Steve's insight about how she embezzled money in the past does place a lot of doubt into any accusations she might present against either party.

Oh I think he'll follow through, he seems to have it out for them.  How grounded his case is remains to be seen.

RR sent a final press release on yesterday's ruling:

http://live.autographmagazine.com/forum/topics/court-rejects-michae...

Interesting write up at www.autographmagazine.com.

Clearly this person likes filing lawsuits but RR never said he had to return the items and they failed PSA which is worrying to me as a buyer. Add this to the fact that RR no longer take PayPal or credit cards and they are not coming across well out of this

Just last auction alone they had at least two fake music items, one they eventually pulled but the other they sold. Both were supposedly pre-certified by Roger, but one was so incredibly bad there's no way Roger looked at it, he would have spotted it immediately. Their whole process is a mess. But if I was Roger, I wouldn't want them putting my name on items I didn't look at, that's only going to hurt his reputation.

What were the music items you thought were fake, Mike? Can you send me a link to the one that wasn't pulled?

RR is good at checking out lots that people think aren't real. When you see something you're concerned about, point it out to them or post it on AML for discussion.

Steiger made a discussion about them, links are probably no good anymore:

http://live.autographmagazine.com/forum/topics/rrauction-com-anothe...

I'm sure they saw it and pulled the one, but they claim that Roger pre-certified it.  If this is not true, why do they list the item with that claim?

I still don't quite understand, Dan. What do you mean by the comment about not returning the items? Do you have something you can link to where it states that RR offered a refund without requiring the items be returned? That would be an awful business practice for an auction house.

As for the PP/CC thing... again, many (possibly most?) auction houses don't accept PP or CCs for payment. The reason is that they're selling consignments. They get paid, they send the money to the consignor. If a year later, a CC has a chargeback, they'd have to refund the buyer. Same goes for PP and CC chargebacks. They'd be out the money to the consignor, out the money to the buyer, and out the item.

Hi Dane, I don't have it to hand but RR's own terms an conditions did not state the items had to be returned for a refund, they have now changed this.

I understand the consignment but as an overseas buyer I will never buy unless I can use a credit card or PayPal as I have zero protection and this will cost them and other places quite a lot of bids and business. It's fine when things go right but when things go wrong the buyer loses and will not return.

Wait, why would a company need to explicitly state that items must be returned in order to receive a refund? That's implied in the definition of a sale. Some companies choose to state that they will offer a money back guarantee and let you keep the item, but that is far from the norm or accepted general practice.

I'm pretty sure that the average person would believe you'd need to return the original item when asking for a refund.

I fully agree with you, I would always expect to return an item for a refund unless the company said don't bother at the time of complaint.

Obviously a lawyer has seen this as a chance to create more confusion and add to the list of issues

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