Fashion is an industry where it pays to be on trend. But in 2015, clothing retailers faced a trend they weren’t excited about: a wave of class actions aimed at outlet stores’ pricing practices.
Plaintiffs alleged that items at shops like Nordstrom Rack and Gap Factory were advertised as being discounted when they had never actually been sold at the “original” price listed on the tag. Morgan Lewis & Bockius’s consumer class action teamsucceeded in rolling back a rack of the suits in 2015. In Shaulis v. Nordstrom, the firm’s lawyers persuaded a Massachusetts federal judge to dismiss a class complaint filed by a woman who said she wouldn’t have paid $49.97 for a cardigan at Nordstrom Rack if she’d known it had never actually sold for the “Compare At” price of $218 listed on its tag.