IGA LAWSUIT MARCHES ON
Status Report

Safelite has scheduled a motion for November 8, 2005 to ask the court to dismiss more of the IGA's case against it. The IGA and the other plaintiffs alleged in the original Complaint which started the lawsuit that Safelite commits a deceptive trade practice when it lies to customers about its competition in order to steer customers. Safelite now alleges that, even if Safelite is committing a deceptive trade practice, the customer who remains as plaintiff in the case cannot complain about it because he must show as a technical matter that he is likely to be damaged in the future by such lying. According to Safelite, such steering cannot cause him damage in the future because he already knows about Safelite's steering practices - he, therefore, has no legal "standing" to complain now that he is wise to Safelite's illegal practices.

In response, our lawyers claim that Safelite's logic is faulty. There are only two kinds of customers, those who know about the lying and those who don't. Only the first type of customer can ever complain about the steering because the other group -- those who have been successfully lied to -- do not know about the deceptive trade practice and cannot, therefore, complain. We will see how the court rules.

The IGA's lawyers are preparing amendments to the original Complaint to accommodate what the judge has already ruled. There is reason for optimism but we are still in the first quarter of play and it is too soon to predict success or failure.

To be continued…