Union Bank has agreed to a $35,000,000 settlement rather than spend further money in court. The lawsuit is entitled Checking Account Overdraft Litigation, case number 09-cv-02036 and is in the jurisdiction of the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida, Miami. The lawsuit revolved around claims that Union Bank juked the system so that customers would have to pay overdraft fees. The lawsuit claims Union Bank did this by “resequencing” checks so that checks for higher amounts were cleared first. This caused checks for smaller amounts presented on the same day to bounce again, which resulted in the customer paying more fees! Under normal banking transactions (such as checks) are processed by chronological order.
An estimated 350,000 banking customer between the dates of January 2005 to August 2010 were charged overdraft fees as a results of this juked system. This is not the first bank to have a similar lawsuit filed against them. Bank Of America recently settled for $410,000,000 in a very similar case.
Attorneys in the Union Bank Overdraft Fee lawsuit included Bruce Rogow of Bruce S. Rogow, Barry Himmelstein of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, Edward Webb of Webb Law Group, and Arlene Stevens of Trief & Olk for the plaintiffs. Union Bank was represented by Alan Greeg of Richman Greer Weil Brumbaugh Mirabito & Christensen.
