A class-action lawsuit has been filed in San Antonio, Texas, against the Texas Health Department, claiming the agency illegally sold newborn blood samples. According to the lawsuit, the department “sold, traded, bartered, and distributed blood samples” in exchange for “fees, lab equipment and other purposes.” The sale was an unlawful search and seizure, the suit states. This is the second lawsuit this decade filed against the department involving the use of children’s blood.

Fifth Third Bank has agreed to a $9.5 million settlement in a class-action lawsuit over faulty overdraft fees. According to the suit, the bank re-sequenced transactions to maximize fees. The proposed settlement would include anyone who held an account starting in October 2004.

An additional class-action lawsuit has been filed against Toyota Motors, claiming the company repurchased cars that showed sudden acceleration and forced owners to sign confidentiality agreements to keep their complaints silent. The suit also alleges that Toyota engineers were able to duplicate the acceleration problems in labs but failed to notify the proper government agencies. More than 200 lawsuits have been filed against Toyota after their recall of millions of vehicles earlier this year.

A class-action lawsuit has been filed against a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson over a recall of faulty hip replacement devices that affected around 93,000 people. The suit claims the company, DePuy Orthopaedics, misled patients to believe they were going to be reimbursed for the costs of their “revision surgeries.” Patients released their medical records to DePuy under that assumption, the lawsuit states.

A class-action lawsuit has been filed against DePuy Orthopaedics, Inc. over a hip replacement implant that was recalled earlier this year due to a high failure rate. According to a study published in Britain, 13 percent of patients that received the ASR XL Acetabular System hip replacement had to have revision surgery within five years. The lawsuit contends that the company should have known the device was defective prior its sale to patients. The suit will potentially cover any patient who received a DePuy hip replacement in the last seven years.

A class-action suit has been filed in St. Louis against the Dial Corporation, accusing them of charging a premium for their foaming hand soap that uses false claims about its benefits. The lawsuit claims the statements made by Dial that their soap “kills more germs than any other liquid hand soap” have no factual basis. The F.D.A. made a statement earlier this year, saying there is no evidence that using antibacterial soaps provides any benefit over washing with regular soap and water. The suit claims Dial is in violation of Illinois consumer fraud law by “misstating the soap’s health benefits.”

The federal government has paid $11 million to a former Navy family to settle a lawsuit over alleged medical errors in the birth of a girl in November 2005 at Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii. Due to what the suit called “a series of egregious medical errors,” the girl suffered severe brain damage shortly after birth. The suit contended that doctors failed to deliver the baby in a timely manner after realizing she was dying in the womb and did not administer much-needed oxygen to the child until hours after she was born. As a result, the child will never walk, talk or be able to use the bathroom on her own.

A California nursing home group has agreed to pay $50 million to settle a lawsuit accusing them of failing to adequately staff their numerous homes  across the state.  The group was found guilty of failing to meet the state requirements of maintaining 3.2 nurses per patient per day.

A federal judge will reportedly allow a lawsuit filed against AT&T and Apple to proceed with class-action status. The lawsuit accuses Apple and AT&T of creating an exclusive deal to pair the iPhone with service provider AT&T as a way to eliminate competition. Because of this exclusive partnership, customers with an iPhone were locked into longer-than-expected contracts with AT&T, the lawsuit states. The lawsuit seeks an injunction to stop Apple from selling iPhones locked into AT&T’s network.

Social networking site Facebook has agreed to pay $9.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over a marketing program that published what users were buying. The settlement was approved by a California federal judge this week. Plaintiffs contested that the Beacon program violated their right to privacy. As part of the settlement, Facebook will issue more than $6 million in grants to organizations that study user privacy online.