Hertz 2007 Annual Report Download - page 74

Rental, Inc., Pacific Rent-A-Car, Inc., ABC Rent-A-Car, Inc., The California Travel and Tourism
Commission, and Dale E. Bonner was commenced in the United States District Court for the
Central District of California. Comiskey purports to be a class action brought on behalf of all
persons and entities that have paid an assessment since the inception of the Passenger Car
Rental Industry Tourism Assessment Program in California on January 1, 2007. The complaint
alleges that California’s Passenger Car Rental Industry Tourism Assessment Program, as
included in the California Tourism Marketing Act, violates the United States Constitution’s
Commerce Clause and First Amendment, both directly and in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983,
Article I, §§ 2 and 3 of the California Constitution, and Article XIX, § 2 of the California
Constitution. The complaint seeks injunctive and declaratory relief, that all unspent
assessments collected and to be collected be held in trust, damages, interest, attorneys’ fees,
and costs. On December 14, 2007, Isabel S. Cohen filed in the United States District Court for
the Central District of California a complaint virtually identical to that filed in Comiskey. In
February 2008, the court consolidated Comiskey and Cohen, captioned the consolidated
action ‘‘In re Tourism Assessment Fee Litigation,’’ and ordered the plaintiffs to serve a single
consolidated class action complaint. The plaintiffs have not yet filed the consolidated
complaint.
We believe that we have meritorious defenses in the foregoing matters and will defend ourselves
vigorously.
In addition, we are currently a defendant in numerous actions and have received numerous claims on
which actions have not yet been commenced for public liability and property damage arising from the
operation of motor vehicles and equipment rented from us and our licensees. In the aggregate, we can
be expected to expend material sums to defend and settle public liability and property damage actions
and claims or to pay judgments resulting from them.
On February 19, 2007, The Hertz Corporation and TSD Rental LLC v. Enterprise Rent-A-Car Company and
The Crawford Group, Inc. was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. In
this action, we and our co-plaintiff seek damages and injunctive relief based upon allegations that
Enterprise and its corporate parent, The Crawford Group, Inc., unlawfully engaged in anticompetitive
and unfair and deceptive business practices by claiming to customers of Hertz that once Enterprise
obtains a patent that it has applied for relating to its insurance replacement reservation system, Hertz will
be prevented from using the co-plaintiff’s EDiCAR system, which Hertz currently uses in its insurance
replacement business. The complaint alleges, among other things, that Enterprise’s threats are
improper because the Enterprise patent, once issued, should be invalid and unenforceable. In April
2007, Enterprise and Crawford filed a motion to dismiss and Hertz and TSD filed opposition papers in
May 2007. After a hearing on Enterprise’s motion in September 2007, Hertz and TSD filed an amended
complaint in October 2007.
On September 25, 2007, we filed a second lawsuit, also captioned The Hertz Corporation and TSD
Rental LLC v. Enterprise Rent-A-Car Company and The Crawford Group, Inc. in the United States District
Court for the District of Massachusetts. In this second lawsuit—the patent action—we seek a declaratory
judgment that a newly issued patent to The Crawford Group, Inc. is not infringed by Hertz and is invalid
and unenforceable. In October 2007, we filed a motion to consolidate the antitrust action and the patent
action and, in November 2007, the court granted our motion to consolidate the two actions. Enterprise
and Crawford filed a motion to dismiss the patent action in December 2007 and Hertz and TSD filed
opposition papers in January 2008. See ‘‘Part I—Item 1A—Risk Factors—Claims that the software
products and information systems that we rely on are infringing on the intellectual property rights of
others could increase our expenses or inhibit us from offering certain services, which could adversely
affect our results of operations’’ included elsewhere in this Report.
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