What is "Class Action"

[pa2themd 0]

While I understand it is a legal term I am watching "North Country" and was wondering what exactly it meant. ... thanks

"Most of us can read the writing on the wall; we just assume it's
addressed to someone else!" Ivern Ball

[AggieDave 6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[Slappie 9]

Quote

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action

Hey now! you Wikibasher, go away.

"Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them."

[AggieDave 6]

Wikipedia has a little bit of credibility...its not suggesting farts for making up with a girlfriend.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[jumpchikk 0]

It means a lawsuit that's brought by a group of people that are suing the same entity for the same reason.
That's the definition I came up with anyway...

[pa2themd 0]

Merci ... thanks a million understand completly ...

"Most of us can read the writing on the wall; we just assume it's
addressed to someone else!" Ivern Ball

[jumpchikk 0]

De Rien

[lawrocket 3]

In theory, it's a method for a large group of people who have suffered such small damages that the prospect of a lawsuit is not worth the time, energy and money to pursue a lawsuit to pool resources to sue as a class of people who have been damaged. So if a business has made fraudulent charges by adding ten dollars to purchases by 10 million people, the one person isn't gonna sue for $10, and the business just made 100 million bucks from it. Class actions seek to solve that problem. Usually, they give notice to all possible people that they'll be locked in unless they opt out.

Also, class actions help with larger claims where multidistrict litigation comes into play. If the company doesn't have the resources to pay $100 million or more in damages, then the class can come up with a settlement that gurantees everybody something from it.

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Now my thoughts on the practice of it. It's become a goddamned disgrace. It's nothing more that the opportunity for big money to the plaintiff lawyers. Get a 100 million dollar settlement and the lawyers get 35 million of it. Meanwhile, the business may be required in the settlement to give a non-transferable coupon for five buck off of the next purchase to the class members.

Oh, yeah. The class actions are centered in the poor areas of the Gulf states, because those juries filled with the poor, uneducated and economically disadvantage give the HUGE verdicts. More money for the plaintiff's lawyers.

I was, at one time, involved in lower-end class action stuff, and I was appalled. Serious changes need to be made to a system that gives a plaintiff a coupon and lawyers tens of millions.
However, the practice itself is intensely pervt

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