Seventeen states, spearheaded by the attorneys general of Minnesota, North Carolina, and Missouri, asked July 14 for permission to join a 1995 lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, alleging that book wholesaler Baker & Taylor had also overcharged schools and libraries in their states since 1980. The lawsuit seeks repayment as well as civil penalties under state consumer protection statutes.
The Minnesota Attorney General's office also charges that B&T programmed its computers to give clients less than the 40% discount for trade books and then concealed the fact by only admitting to discrepancies as isolated mistakes. One internal B&T memo allegedly states "we cannot tell customer that we have been discounting . . . at less than full trade discount for years" and that to do so "will get us in hot water with customers rather quickly."
In a B&T press release, President Jim Ulsamer called the suit "baseless." The other states involved are Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and Wisconsin.
Posted July 20, 1998.