Caesars Entertainment Continues Fight Against Lawsuit
Caesars Entertainment Corporation is carrying on its fight against a 2013 New Jersey Superior Court ruling which ordered the company to pay out $5.2 million to thousands of people who had been sent potentially misleading “birthday cash” promotions a decade ago.
Caesars is continuing its fight against a lawsuit from 2003 when it was ordered to pay millions of dollars in damages.
The case began when Debra Smerling, an East Brunswick, Middlesex County woman, visited Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City in 2003. She was hoping to redeem a $15 birthday voucher she had been given.
However, she was unable to redeem the voucher due to a number of restrictions on the promotion that were only explained in small print and as a result she decided to sue Caesars.
Seven years later, in 2010, a Superior Court judge in Middlesex County ruled that Harrah’s had violated New Jersey’s truth-in-advertising laws. The ruling meant that the tens of thousands of people who had received to the birthday voucher were entitled to $100 each in damages. This initially meant a total of $7.9 million to be paid out among 79,000 people; however, a 2012 court ruling reduced it to $5.2 million.
