Article archive / January 1, 2011
Originally published: . Volume 2, No. 5. Source pages: 4.
A federal class action against the American Psychological Association claims that millions of dollars were fraudulently collected from members over decades, as reported by Courthouse News Service, October 25, 2010. The lawsuit has to do with the special assessment for practitioners, and that the assessment was made to seem mandatory when it was not. Also a problem is that the money was given to a separate, but affiliated, lobbying group.
The named claimant is Ellen Levine of Hayward, California. She noted, “…APA employed a subterfuge to function as a lobbying and lobbying fundraising entity.” The claim also noted, “The APAPO practice assess- ment is not trivial, amounting to over 50 percent of the amount of the APA dues…” For example in 2009 the assessment was $137 and dues were $238.
“Until dissemination by defendants of the revised dues statement form in May 2010, it was unknown by plaintiff and members of the class, and not reasonably capable of being known, that the purportedly mandatory APAPO assessment was a means by which APA/APAPO leadership secretly, fraudulently and with intent to deceive, had set up the dues arrangement described hereinabove so as to illegally collect lobbying funds from membership which the leadership knew otherwise would be unwilling to donate or provide through dues or otherwise the annual APAPO assessments,” according to the complaint.
The class includes all APA members in the US who paid the assessment.
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