A class action lawsuit against a well-known personal injury firm was filed this week in federal court.

Barbara Smalls, of Farmingdale, received serious injuries to her neck and spine during an accident on Hempstead Turnpike in in 2008. She then hired Jacoby and Myers law firm after seeing an ad on television.

Smalls says in a maze of paperwork and a trail of "lies and deception," she found out the firm had received a settlement in her case for $146,000. She says she never knew about the settlement until she went to Social Services for help to pay her rent.

Smalls says Jacoby and Meyers never informed her of the settlement, despite the fact that Social Services had the settlement in their records. Smalls says that the last straw was when she received a bill for a trial that included $1,000 for a jury's food and housing.

"I never went to trial. I never stepped inside a court room," Smalls told News 12.

Smalls is now part of a class action lawsuit, along with 10,000 other clients, who say Jacoby and Meyers billed them for things they never did and things that never happened.

Jacoby and Meyers declined to comment about the allegations.