Tag Archives: Rosemarie Arnold

Leonia couple sue Costco, alleging they were charged sales tax on toilet paper

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BY NICHOLAS PUGLIESE
STAFF WRITER | THE RECORD
September 16, 2016, 7:45 PM

http://www.northjersey.com/news/leonia-couple-sue-costco-alleging-they-were-charged-sales-tax-on-toilet-paper-1.1661653

A Leonia couple have filed a class-action complaint against Costco Wholesale, alleging that they were illegally charged sales tax on toilet paper at the retailer’s stores in Wayne and Hackensack.

Robert Arnold and Jacqueline Taufield lost only about $6, their attorney said, but their suit could have a big financial impact. They allege in their complaint that more than 100,000 customers could have been similarly affected.

“Conceivably, Costco has to return all of their money plus interest,” said the attorney, Rosemarie Arnold, who has no relation to Robert. “Plus, in this particular case, I think punitive damages are warranted because they know they can’t be charging tax on toilet paper.”

Lawmakers in New Jersey and many other states have exempted toilet tissue and other necessities to keep lower-income consumers from paying extra for things they must use on a daily basis.

Robert Arnold and Taufield allege in their complaint that they were charged a 7 percent sales tax when they purchased Charmin Toilet Tissue at Costco locations in Wayne and Hackensack. Both transactions occurred in July 2015.

When they asked managers for a refund, they were refused and told to contact Costco’s headquarters in Washington state, Arnold, the attorney, said Friday.

“Despite being aware of the illegality of their actions, Costco Wholesale continues to cheat their customers, causing them to incur monetary damages when they purchase toilet tissue,” the couple allege in their complaint.

The couple accuse the warehouse giant of breach of contract, unjust enrichment, negligence and fraud, as well as violating the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act and something known as the Truth-In-Consumer Contract, Warranty and Notice Act.

Another open question, Arnold said, is what Costco is doing with the money that they are collecting on the toilet paper.

“I think that they’re keeping it because if they’re turning it over to the government, isn’t the government going to say, ‘This isn’t taxable’?” she said.

“Unfortunately, we are not able to provide a response at this time,” a Costco spokeswoman said when reached for comment on Friday.

Costco is the second largest retailer in the United States and has about 18 locations in New Jersey, according to the complaint.

Costco accused of improper sales tax charges on toilet paper in New Jersey

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CNBC.com
by Dan Mangan
Friday, September 16, 2016, 2:18 PM

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/16/costco-accused-of-improper-sales-tax-charges-on-toilet-paper-in-new-jersey.html

Don’t you know you’re not supposed to squeeze the Charmin toilet paper — or charge sales tax on it?

A New Jersey couple on Friday filed a class-action lawsuit against Costco Wholesale and several of its stores, claiming the membership-only warehouse giant has been illegally overcharging them — and potentially hundreds of thousands of other customers — by charging sales tax on toilet tissue purchases in violation of state law.

Toilet tissue sold for household use is exempt from New Jersey’s 7 percent sales tax.

But the couple, Jacqueline Taufield and Robert Arnold, said that they were charged the tax when they purchased Charmin toilet tissue on July 26, 2015, from a Costco in Wayne, New Jersey, and then again when they picked up some more Charmin in a Costco in Hackensack five days later.

The suit said that when the Leonia couple complained to Costco management after realizing they had been charged sale tax improperly, “they refused to issue a rebate to them.”

The couple’s lawyer, Rosemarie Arnold, said, “Rather than refund [Robert’s] money, they told him, ‘Well, if you believe that, you have to mail your receipt to the corporate headquarters along with a letter and tell the corporate headquarters how you were improperly charged tax.'”

The couple was “annoyed and angry” about the charge, and that response, said Arnold, who is not related to Robert.

“The obvious solution is to say, ‘You’re absolutely right … we made a mistake, here’s your money back,’ ” the lawyer said.

The suit says that Costco “despite being aware of the illegality of their actions… continues to cheat their customers, causing them to incur monetary damages when they purchase toilet tissue.”

The claim, filed in Bergen County Superior Court, alleges violation of the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act, breach of contract, unjust enrichment, negligence, violation of the state’s “Truth-in-Consumer Contract,” and fraud.

A Costco spokeswoman, when asked for comment on the suit, said, “Unfortunately, we are not able to provide a response at this time.”

Arnold, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, said the amount of tax charged improperly in the couple’s case is less than $1.50 in each purchase.

But nonetheless, Arnold said, “I think it’s huge problem” for Costco and its customers because of the likelihood that the couple were not the only ones subject to the incorrect tax charging.

Costco has 19 warehouse locations in New Jersey, according to the company’s website. And the suit says the class of potentially affected customers is more than 100,000 people.

Arnold said the potential damages for the class would be in the “millions of dollars.”

“Everybody uses toilet paper,” Arnold said. “You have to figure that a patron of Costco is always going to buy toilet paper.”

The lawyer also said it’s an open question of whether Costco “is actually paying the taxes to the government, or keeping the money?”

“Most likely, it’s the latter, because if they submitted tax resolutions to the government, the government would say, ‘This is an non-taxable item, it’s toilet paper,’ ” Arnold said.

A spokesman New Jersey’s Treasury Department, which oversees tax regulations, declined to comment on the lawsuit. But the spokesman noted that “large chain stores have point-of-sale cash registers that are programmed to charge sales tax on a variety of items.”

The spokesman also noted that the department does investigate complaints about stores improperly collecting or not collecting sales tax, and that anyone can file such a complaint anonymously.

The Daily Beast: “Better Call Rosemarie! Meet the Lawyer Suing Christie Over Bridgegate”

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Better Call Rosemarie! Meet the Lawyer Suing Christie Over Bridgegate
Rosemary Arnold says her clients—including a doggy-daycare owner—suffered when their town was jammed with traffic.

by Olivia Nuzzi
The Daily Beast
January 16, 2014

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/16/better-call-rosemarie-meet-the-lawyer-suing-christie-over-bridgegate.html

In Fort Lee, New Jersey, perched high above the Hudson River, is a white, slightly weatherworn building. It houses the law offices of Rosemarie Arnold, advertised in bold white lettering above the doorway. At the entrance of the office driveway, a sign informs you that you are at “The Personal Injury Center.” The.

Six days ago, a group of six New Jersey residents filed a lawsuit in federal court in response to revelations that suggested at least one official in Governor Chris Christie’s administration closed lanes of the George Washington Bridge as an act of political retribution against Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, a Democrat. Rosemarie Arnold is the civil trial attorney who is representing those (now ten) residents. They are suing Christie, the Port Authority, ex-PA officials David Wildstein and Bill Baroni, and Christie’s former deputy chief of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly.

Arnold’s website advertises her practice areas: car accidents, dog bites, workplace injuries, burn injuries, workplace discrimination, dangerous and defective products, truck accidents, construction accidents, fall-down injuries, spinal-cord injuries, and wrongful death. When we emailed, she responded to me from her iPad. Her sign off included a series of emojis: three ambulances, five bags of money, four shamrocks, and a rose.

Inside her office waiting room, which smells overwhelmingly of Italian food, a downtrodden client sits on a shiny, brown leather chair. He taps his foot and rests his head on the wall behind him, which is overflowing with thumb-tacked thank-you cards. The rest of the walls are decorated with framed press clippings, highlighting Arnold’s many high profile legal battles.

On the cover of US Weekly, with the headline “My World Was Shattered,” is an article about supermodel Christie Brinkley’s divorce. Arnold represented the young girl with whom Brinkley’s ex allegedly had an affair. The entire wall is devoted to this one case, with three other full-page clippings from the New York Post.

As I read the walls, Arnold, who sports a deep tan and dark brown hair, wizzed by, dressed down in jeans, a white tank top and a pink flannel shirt, “I’m running late, be with you in a minute!” Arnold barely looks 25, which is about how long she has owned her practice.

In front of a very large box of Advil, she began by explaining the terror that was the gridlock on the bridge. “People were screaming at each other, and cars were coming like within millimeters of each other, like trying to cut each other off and be first! It was stressful; it was anxiety producing; and it made everybody late!”

Arnold told me one of her clients was late to work and fired. She said she knew of a “newspaper delivery company that delivers The Times” who was affected, and has a client who owns a doggy daycare “right at the foot of the bridge” that couldn’t have pooches picked up or dropped off.

Arnold said her ten plaintiffs are just the ones they named, and she “expects the class to consist of over 100,000 people.” Arnold adds, “each persons’ damages need to be calculated, but I can’t imagine this case is worth less than tens of millions of dollars.”

The smoking gun text by Bridget Ann Kelly (“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee”) is what Arnold says will win her case for her. The rest of the documents, she told me, weren’t even that important. And Arnold, a former supporter of Christie, said his gross misjudgment and mismanagement in Bridgegate has turned her. “The governor to me is a clear-cut defendant in this case. He is the captain of the ship, and he has publicly stated that this was his fault and his administration failed. He actually publicly stated that they acted, and these are important words, with ‘callous indifference,’ that’s purposeful conduct, that’s not negligence, okay? And the governor has proven to be a bully who takes steps to retaliate against those who don’t support him, so of course suing him puts people in a position where they might be subject to his wrath. I don’t fear that.”

Given Arnold’s familiarity with tabloids and television shows like Inside Edition, where she once appeared, I offer a comparison to Gloria Alred.

Arnold gives me a look.

“This is a serious law firm.”

From Politico.com: “Class-action suit filed over bridge”

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Class-action suit filed over bridge

By JOSE DELREAL
Politico.com
January 9, 2014

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/chris-christie-bridge-lawsuit-101991.html

A class-action complaint has been filed in federal court against top government officials connected to the George Washington Bridge scandal, the Fort Lee, N.J., attorney behind the move said Thursday.

The complaint — filed in the U.S. District Court of New Jersey by attorney Rosemarie Arnold — takes aim at key players in the controversy, naming Republican Gov. Chris Christie, his formeraide Bridget Kelly, former Port Authority officials Bill Baroni and David Wildstein, the state of New Jersey and the Port Authority as defendants.
As a class action, the exact number of members has not yet been determined, but according to the filing, it “includes any and all individuals and business owners” who were inconvenienced or hurt by the lane closures between Sept. 9 and Sept. 13. According to Arnold, the plaintiffs work or live in or near Fort Lee or New York City and are citing economic damages by the lane closures.

The complaint follows a whirlwind week for Christie, who said in a press conference Thursday that he was blindsided by a report in The Record that said senior members of his staff were connected with the lane closures on the George Washington Bridge.

Arnold, who officially filed the complaint Thursday, said she was first contacted by potential plaintiffs about suing back in September when allegations surfaced that the closures were politically motivated. At the time, however, she was hesitant to move forward because of a lack of evidence. Following the revelation that top Christie aides were connected to the closures, she now feels confident moving forward.

“At the time, I said, ‘You know, you have to be able to prove it. You can’t have these unsubstantiated allegations,’” Arnold said. “Now I think we have what we need. This is not a situation that complies with the 14th Amendment.”

Moving forward, the class listed in the complaint has to be certified by meeting certain criteria; Arnold said she is “100 percent” certain those steps will be cleared.

Arnold also stressed that her clients were not merely “inconvenienced” by the road closures.

“I have a client that suffers from panic attacks. And while she was stuck in this traffic, she started to have a panic attack. She and her husband were just trapped like rats,” Arnold said. “She walked out of the car, she threw up, and then she just wanted to leave, but she couldn’t walk home. The traffic was disastrous. And this was a deliberate attempt. This was the desired result of the political motivated closure.”