Understanding Class Action Lawsuits скачать в хорошем качестве

Understanding Class Action Lawsuits

https://www.sommerspc.com/ - (248) 355-0300 Sommers Schwartz attorney Jason Thompson explains class action lawsuits, the benefits and efficiencies they off consumers and others whose rights have been impacted, and the important role class action litigation plays in our legal system. Video Transcript: Class actions are so powerful because the numbers get so big so fast. And what I mean by that are the number of clients and the number of dollars that the defendant has to deal with. So for example, a corporation who manufactures a car or a device or emits pollution, there are a lot of people that are affected by that, a lot of dollars that are at stake in those lawsuits. And as a result, judges pay a lot more attention to those cases. And when you combine a large number of people with a lot of money and a judge that's paying attention to the case, you can bring about powerful changes. Class actions do require specialized attorneys. Class actions typically involve cases where the stakes are very high. And as a result, the companies that are sued, called defendants, typically hire some of the best attorneys in the country. Also, the judges look at those cases a little different than the run of the mill lawsuit. Because the stakes are so high, the judges demand a higher caliber work product. And so in a class action lawsuit, you typically have some of the best lawyers that specialize in that field. And if you are in a class action or have a case that can be certified as a class action, you're going to need a specialized attorney who regularly handles and wins those cases. Certain types of cases make for good class actions. And the types of cases that we're talking about are where the evidence or the facts are basically the same for all of the people involved. Some examples would be a defective car or a defective product. Everybody who bought that product basically has the same case. And so they're going to use the same evidence, the same witnesses, the same documents, to prove their case. Another example would be a wage an hour case where people aren't paid overtime. If you're not being paid overtime it's likely that your coemployees are also not being paid overtime. A third example is called an antitrust case or an anti-competitive case where a couple businesses conspire to rig the market or price fix, have a monopoly of some sort. Well, everybody who's affected by that in the marketplace is essentially laboring under the same problems. Again, they're going to have the same evidence, same witnesses. The legal term that describes all that is called commonality. And in the class action world, that's the test for a class action. Cases that have commonality are good class actions. Class actions accomplish efficiency. And that's really what they're all about. You can look at a class action and its efficiency from three perspectives, really. From the class, the people who are in the case, from the courts, and from the defendant's perspective. So from the class's perspective, if you have 5,000 people who have been harmed or alleged to have been harmed by a product or some type of an event that applies to all of them, they don't have to all hire a lawyer they don't have to all take off time from work and go to court. There's two, three, maybe seven of them that are the class representatives, and they prosecute the case with the lawyers. From the defendant's standpoint, it's equally as efficient if it's all wrapped up in a class action, because they don't have to sit down for a deposition and put their people through court hearings, produce documents 5,000 separate times. They do it once. And from the court's perspective, they're very efficient. Again, if you have 5000 lawsuits that essentially involve the same facts and circumstances, and you have them all going through the same courthouse, the court will grind to a halt. And so efficiency is really what a class action is all about. Not all cases make for good class actions. For example, a case where we had individual reactions, individual circumstances, something unique about the parties, those don't make for good class actions because the evidence and witnesses that will be used to resolve that case are different. It's not the same for everybody. And that is what is required for a class action. And if you think about it, when a judge or a jury resolves a case, and it's