i’m watching a show (htgawm) and a character is filing (or making, idk) a class action lawsuit suit.
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A class action is an exception to the rule that litigation is conducted only on behalf of the litigants. It is a way for a plaintiff to argue that he/she should be able to sue on behalf of others who were harmed in a similar way.
Class actions are permitted because frequently each individual claim is too small to be worth suing over. But because a class action binds people who are not parties to the lawsuit and had no say in how the suit was conducted (if the plaintiff loses, they lose too), the court has to approve (“certify”) the class. That usually happens pretty far into the case, by which point the parties can usually evaluate the risks and rewards of going to trial and instead decide to settle. Because the class will also be bound by any settlement (defendants won’t pay much if they’re just going to get sued again by someone else), the court also has to approve any classwide settlement to make sure the plaintiffs’ lawyers aren’t getting all the money and leaving the class with nothing.
Some people complain that the lawyers do get everything and leave the class with nothing. Those people are ignorant. The attorneys bear all the risks, spending millions of dollars on a case that they may ultimately lose, and without them, the class would get nothing at all. The attorneys usually get 20-30%. Individuals feel like they get nothing because the remaining 70-80% is split among *so many people*, and their claims were so small to begin with (otherwise, a class action wouldn’t be needed).
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