By Debbie Schlussel
Forget Barack Obama’s Presidential Inauguration, tomorrow. For women (and perhaps a few gay men) across America, tomorrow is free makeup and perfume day, courtesy of greedy lawyers and nitwit class action plaintiffs.
They sued department stores and high-end makeup purveyors around the country over alleged price-fixing in the 1990s. What was the “price-fixing”? Well, the lawyers claimed that America’s women were deprived and otherwise ripped off because the defendant department stores and cosmetic companies allegedly coordinated and alternated when they would offer a free gift to go along with the purchase of makeup by Estee Lauder, Clinique, etc.
Do you remember what makeup you bought at a department store in the 1990s? Do you feel “victimized” that one store offered a special free gift with purchase one week and another the next week? Me, neither. But you can thank Fatemah Azizian, Soraya Farrah (both Arabs, but every ethnicity is represented) and the other named Plaintiffs in the Fatemah Azizian et al. v. Federated Department Stores, Inc. et al. (Read the Full Lawsuit Complaint) for your free makeup windfall, tomorrow.

And even if you do feel victimized and raped by this horrible example of torture, don’t worry about finding your receipt from October of 1996 for a $12 eyeliner. You don’t have to prove that you actually bought anything from any of these companies in order to take part in this silly, exorbitant plunder. Since the stuff is being given away free on a first-come, first-served basis tomorrow, the true alleged “victims” in this case may not even comprise any of the swag recipients. And that’s not the point of this lawsuit.
Anyone can just show up, tomorrow morning, at any of the stores listed here and get one of the cosmetics and perfumes specified free of charge. (Guys, here’s an idea to please your wife or girlfriend for free–go pick up some free perfume for her, courtesy of a dumb lawsuit. Or stock up so you won’t have to spring for a Valentine’s Day gift, next month.)
Addressing the “injustice” of getting free gifts from Nordstrom or Macy’s back in 1994 isn’t the point of this class action lawsuit settlement. Nope. The point is to transfer millions in wealth to greedy lawers. Soaking Big Cosmetics–that’s the point. Soaking Big Makeup for greedy lawyers. It’s a transfer of wealth from those who tested substances on women’s faces to those who spent three years in law school. I did a little research. Here’s the payout list of approved attorney’s fees from the case:




Over $24 million to lawyers who sued over women getting a free makeup gift in the 1990s. Is it just me, or is there something terribly wrong with this picture? Something that free makeup won’t help other than as lipstick on a legal pig.
I can just see the salivating Gitmo inmates now. After all, if women can get hundreds of millions to settle a lawsuit for their “injury” of receiving a free makeup gift in the 1990s, imagine what a Muslim who was “forced” to listen to Christina Aguilera music, sit on a La-Z-Boy chair, read Harry Potter, will get.
Cosmetics companies and department stores are shelling out $175 million in this settlement (with the attorney’s fees, it’s $200 mill). And guess who’ll pay the price? You, the consumer. And it won’t just be women who buy cosmetics who will be paying higher prices to make up for this tremendous payout. Department stores, like Macy’s and Neiman Marcus, will raise their prices on everything. Not exactly the step they want to or should take in this sour economy.
Sadly, this isn’t the only ridiculous, costly class action settlement of late. I’ve written about plenty of them, including dumb lawsuits about bananas and another about low-carb candy. And they will never end until we tighten up rules on class action suits. And that won’t happen in a lawyer-friendly Obama administration.
And it won’t happen with judges like Federal Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong, who awarded the absurd amount of lawyer fees in this ludicrous lawsuit. (She was appointed to the bench by George Herbert Walker Bush.)
Questions need to be asked, which Her Dishonor Ms. Brown didn’t ask. Like, how exactly did Ms. Azizian, Ms. Farrah, and the other plaintiffs in this class action lawsuit find out that they were injured in 1994 by getting a free cosmetic gift with their purchase? How did they learn of the free gift coordination between stores and cosmetic companies? How did they find a lawyer to file the suit? I think it’s clear that it was the other way around–the lawyers found them. And that’s called “solicitation,” illegal for lawyers to do in most state in the Union. The whole thing stinks, so much so that free perfume tomorrow won’t mask the stench.
The next time a trial lawyer–I call them the “Ludicrous Litigeratti” tells you how trial lawyers do important work seeking legal redress for injuries in the courts, your response should be:
Yeah, important work like Fatemah Azizian et al. v. Federated Department Stores, right?
The plaintiffs in this case aren’t victims. They’re perpetrators.
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Since I posted this today, I can’t miss out on saying this:
Martin Luther King, Jr. may have had a dream, but thanks to the greedy trial lawyers, we have free face cream.