By: Jessica Corso
Law360, New York (February 06, 2015, 2:55 PM ET) — A California research company has been hit with a putative class action in a Los Angeles court accusing it of committing fraud and violating a state medical research law by failing to compensate study participants as promised.
Medicus Research LLC, which operates as Staywell Research, is putting up barriers to prevent study participants from collecting the pay they were promised when they agreed to participate in the research, according to a complaint filed Wednesday.
Lead plaintiff Francesca Gallard says she signed a contract, which Staywell refused to give her a copy of, that stated she would be paid $1,000 within 75 days of completing a weight loss study that entailed using a specific weight-loss powder and completing lengthy office visits twice a month. That was in July of 2013 and Gallard Says she still has not received a dime.
She believes that thousands to tens of thousands of other Californians have met with the same resistnace by the company and its lead researcher, Dr. Sanjay K. Udani, based on customer complaints filed over the internet, with some unhappy participants even setting up a Facebook page dedicated to pursuing Staywell for the payments, according to the complaint.
“Plaintiffs are informed and believe defendants direct complaints from participants seeking owed compensation to a call center, which is rarely answered. Defendants instruct representatives working the call center to not provide callers with information regarding compensaton,” according to the complaint.
Walk-in-requests for payment are also met with stalling tactics, Gallard says, and twenty complaints have already been filed against Staywell since Jan. 1 with the Business Consumer Alliance.
Aside from breaking contracts promising to pay the participants between $200 and $1,500, Staywell is also being accused of violating California Protection of Human Subjects in Medical ExperimentationAct by not obtaining informed consent.
The proposed class would never have consented to participate in the study without promises fround in the company’s marketing materials, including on its website, that participants would be paid, Gallard says.
Neither Staywell nor Medicus could be immediately reached to comment on the allegations Friday.
The proposed class is being represented by Gillian L. Wade andAllison K. Willett of Milstein Adelman LLP and Kenneth J. Grunfeld of Golomb & Honik PC.
Counsel information for defendants was not immediately available Friday.
The suit is Gallard et.al. v. Medicus Research LLC etal, case number BC571558, in the Superior Court of the State of California, Los Angeles County.
–Editing by Emily Kokoll.
