How Class Action Lawsuits Work

Published Dec 8, 2020, 10:00 AM

Class action lawsuits seem a little odd – a bunch of people get together for a sue-fest against somebody – but in the legal world they’re a practical way of handing huge wrongs. And! They keep justice just in their way. Learn all about them today.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Welcome to Stuff you should know, A production of I Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh um Legal, Egal Clark. There's Chuck Man that was gonna be Jerry's all right, well, Jerry can be Robert Redford, so Chuck, Deborah Winger Bryant, and then Jerry Robert Redford, Roland And this is stuff you should know. I never saw that movie, really, yeah, I just want you know. I was gonna too young for a legal procedural, I think, and then I just never caught up to it. Not just a legal procedural, a romance one too, Yeah, boring. I saw it a bunch of times when I was younger for some reason. I guess my mom must have been into it or something. Now is just a long for the ride, right exactly. Yeah, but it was good if I remember correctly, We're uh, yeah, it was a good I mean, you can't go wrong with either one of those two, you know, wasn't there a third? Uh? Legal Eagles three Olympus has fallen? I think there a third person in that. Wouldn't it a romantic triangle? Or am I just making that up? I don't know, I don't I think you're there's the Last Days of Disco. I'm looking now, Darryll Hannah's on the cover, so she might have been popped in for a tasteful nude. Then she probably plays a big she convulsives on the floor. Um, you know she's married to right, No, Neil Young, I didn't know that. I could totally see that now that you say it, though. Yeah, they're the reason that Neil Young and David Cross or David Cross would be funny. David Crosby don't speak to each other anymore. Why did did David Crosby used to like Daryl Hannah. No, he's he's just a big jerk, and he like said something about her in an interview that wasn't nice, like right when they got together. Gez problem dead to me, He's he's a notorious jerk. I didn't even know that, but I could kind of see it. You know, he admits it. That's even worse. I think that's worse. People who are like, I'm just I'm just a jerk. Deal with it. It's like, no, why don't you change your personality a little bit to conform a little better to the rest of our expectations? You s ob well, let me rephrase that. He and this is all coming from the great, great documentary about him, recent one. He is he admits it and has deep regrets over how he treated people. Oh well that's good. Yeah, who regrets his behaviors? That makes it easier to kick somebody when they're down. You know, if they're like, deal with it, you can't bring them down to your level and kick them. But if they're like, I really regret everything, you'd be like, yeah, you should really rub it in, you know, especially as an old man. Sure, exactly so. Um. Obviously, today, Chuck, we're talking about class action lawsuits. I think anybody who could read the stuff you should know Tea Leaves could have discerned that, or they could have just looked at the title of the episode. Yeah you know something that It occurred to me while we were doing researching this, Like most I don't know about most, but many people listening to this show have maybe even unknowingly been a part of a class action lawsuit. Sure, I know I have. I have to. I've gotten those little emails that say, you know you got coming to you from whatever, right You're like, every bit of your personal information was stolen in the Equifax breach. So Aquifax is going to give you some identity theft protection or a discount, which is that's always the rub. Yeah, a lot of people probably have been a part of a class action lawson. You may not have been, may not have paid attention to it. You may have gotten one of those things in the mail and just been like what is this? Who cares? Or even if you read the fine print, you might have been like this is literally not worth my time and responding for. But there's a lot of things that happened in the fact by by the virtue of you not responding to whatever card or something you saw, or even like an ad on TV apparently qualifies as notifying somebody that, hey, you may be a member of this class action lawsuit. Yeah. I um, this kind of came up recently in my life and that I've mentioned before that I'm on a Facebook page of a community in rural Georgia where I have some land in rural Georgia, And uh, there are some Donald Trump's reporters that were pretty upset that we're asking if they could bring a class action lawsuit to overturn the election. Uh, presumably because they don't like the result. But I didn't get involved and jump in there and say, you know, you, like what kind of damage is you gonna prove or whatever, UM, because I think it would be interesting to try and prove emotional and psychological damage for an election result. That would be an interesting case. But that is I mean that is it would be like most of the cases around the election it turns out. But with the um. With with that though, like you've kind of hit upon a few things here, That the idea that there's a group of people who were wronged in some way in similar ways, who on their own might not get anywhere with the case, but collectively like pulling together there their resources UM or they're the multiple harms done UM like taking those individual harms and tournament in one big, mushy pile. That's the basis of a class action lawsuit. And it really kind of gets to the heart of why they exist, and that is that a lot of times, UM, you're suing like like a big giant corporation with enormous resources at their disposed of, they can you all day long until not only does the lawsuit go away, but you don't have any money left. And when you really look at it. At the end of the day, you might have really just been after a hundred or a thousand, or even ten thousand, or even a hundred thousand dollars worth of damages, which might seem like a lot to you, but might actually be less than the amount that you would spend on that case. And so when you when you face those kind of odds, that kind of challenge, you're just not going to file that suit. Any reasonable reasonable person wouldn't file a lawsuit like that. But the problem is, if that's the case, then that means that giant corporations who are doing ill stuff, um can just keep doing ill stuff, which is a new phrase. I'm working on them taking it out for a walk, right term. Okay, well, then this is an homage to the b Boys. But the the idea that that that if you know, people are just gonna let them get away with it because it's like they can't for the court fees. That's a problem. Which is one of the big things that that is one of the big benefits that class action suits provided. You can take all the separate people, put them together, and now all of a sudden you have a formidable opponent. Yeah, and it's obviously a part of civil law as opposed to criminal law. Um, where I mentioned you have to have some sort of injury. It could be physical, could be emotional, psychological, obviously financial. Uh, And it's what's known as a device and civil litigation, and all that means is sort of that it doesn't really it's sort of the same thing as any other civil case, but it just allows multiple people to take part, and you know, we'll go over all the little minor differences, but it's sort of like treating that big body of people as a single plaintiff, and in fact they do have to even have a representative plaintiff. Like it can't be you know, all Volkswagen owners versus Volkswagen. It would be and of course we'll talk about that real case, but I'm just making this up. It would be Josh Clark versus Volkswagen, and then Josh Clark would have a million angry Germans standing behind him. Do I win in this in this theoretical lawsuit? Tell me what's the shouldn't a big Volkswagen because that was a real case that we'll talk about, but let's say it was, Oh, I don't know, Uh, you go Josh Clark versus you go Okay, yeah, sure, I don't think Hugo was trying to advertise itself as anything, but you goos that was their whole stick, you know, super cheap. You don't see those on the road much anymore, do you. Oh no, I think after just a couple of years you stop seeing those on the road. But yeah, you have a representative plaintiff or a lead plaintiff, and there's is the name that appears on the case. Even though and then we'll learn later to that they in fact also they get a little bump, a little extra money for being the lead plaintiff. Yes, they do get a little because they're the ones who have to go through all this stuff. They might have to show up to court. They're the ones who have to coordinate with the lawyers. They're the ones actually suing. But the thing is, as if you show up and say, I am uh a uh, well, we'll take a We'll take a recent example. I used Johnson. I'm a woman here in this in this situation, i have a vagina and every day, for fifty years I've been using Johnson and Johnson's baby powder on my vaginal region. And as a result, I have ovarian cancer and the doctors have said, yeah, Calcoulm powder is really bad for you. Johnson and Johnson's known as forever, but they just didn't tell anybody. Um, So I want to sue Johnson and Johnson and the legal offices that I walk into and say this too. The first of all, the lawyer is gonna jump up and click as heels and then say I'm very sorry that this is happening to you. But the lawyer will probably think, you know, there's a lot of people who use Johnson's and Johnson and Johnson's baby powder. I wonder if there's anybody else like you. Will start to do research, and all of a sudden, your one lawsuit is going to include a lot more people and will probably become s defy as a class action lawsuit. But you, the person who initially filed this, will remain that representative plain if Yeah, boy, I gotta say that that story had a lot of emotional peaks and valleys. Thank you. I'm doing much better now, by the way. Good. I'm glad the uh and you know it does usually but not always, because there are also cases like in Ron, which we'll talk a little bit about but a lot of times it involves product liability. UM. When bridge Stone Firestone had stuff going on there in the early nineteen nineties and I guess for a decade, the US came down and the judge said, from anyone who had car owned or least one through two thousand one Piotoford explorer during those years, then you are part of this class. They call that the class, and then uh the attorney who represents that class, and we'll talk about how they get selected. They are many times referred to as class council, which sounds very much like some middle school title that you would run for or something. But whenever we say class council, just think that's the attorney representing all these people, right class. Yeah, so you want to take a break and then talk a little bit about the history of this stuff. Yeah, let's do it. Okay, stop, you know, stop stop? Shouldn't you know? You stop? You know? Stop stop? Shouldn't you know? So? Chucky said that class action lawsuits are are a type of civil law right which is not criminal law. But even more specifically than that, UM, because they're a part of civil law, they're actually based on common law, which is the legal body that's been formed over the centuries, starting in England and even further back than that. It turns out the Vikings are really the first court that was ever set up in Europe. Um that they actually started a lot of the legal precedent that made its way over to England, that in turn made its way over to America. So helmet tip to the Vikings for all that. But um, the common law is like the sum of all the judicial decisions made over those centuries that set precedent, that was built on and expanded on and refined. That's common law, and common law um is the basis of originally of hearing um these kinds of cases which are class action lawsuits. Yeah, and these they didn't call them class action suits in eleven, but they had them. And it wasn't, you know, thousands of people against a tire company. It was a few people. But uh, in England they allowed a handful of people to get together occasionally in the in the village. And you know, maybe I'm not sure. I didn't really find why exactly they did this. Initially, My guests would just be efficiency of the court maybe early on um, which is sort of how it still is in a lot of ways. Rather than trying thousands of cases or even hundreds of thousands of cases, you can just get everyone together in one room, and that's what they did in England. They allowed a few people to file a single complaint against the court. And this kind of carried over over the years, eventually into Colonial America, along with some other stuff dealing with law. Like like you said, a lot of it sort of some didn't stick, some did, Yeah, no. And there's like a period apparently from about the middle of the UM I guess about the off teen hundreds and the fourteen hundreds to the middle of the nineteenth century where this just kind of went away in England, but it persisted in Colonial America UM and then carried on and then went back to England, UH and found purchase in about the middle of the nineteenth century in England's equity courts, which is a specific kind of court. It's now part of regular civil court now, but for a little while it was its own thing where if say, like, um, you hired a tin smith to make a gravy boat for you in like seventeen fifty eight, UM, you you would take that guy to civil court if he if he gave you one that was like, you know, only half of a gravy boat. You couldn't hold gravy in it. So what are you gonna do with this thing? Um, it's totally useless. So you take the tin smith to court, Well, you would probably expect money for damages, the money that you gave him return to you. Civil court would handle that. If you wanted to say, make the tin smith finish the job, to complete this this gravy boat, then you would probably take him to equity court. Equity court was court that had to do with everything except monetary damages or criminal court. It was the creative kind of court where it really kind of called on to judge's um, fairness and imagination to solve whatever problem was brought before it. And this these equity courts, like we said, like I said, um, we're we're eventually fused into regular civil court. But they are where our understanding, like the modern understanding of class action lawsuits were born. I get some of the eighteenth century gravy man. I love gravy. I don't care what century is from. It's a good band name too. So the problem with equity courts, even early on is that there was really no um kind of codified procedure for everything, especially as these cases got bigger and bigger. Uh, as far as people grouping up, there was no standard procedure. And one of the biggest challenges with that, our guess biggest controversies was whether or not people that weren't a part of that case technically, um, but we're still a part of it because they had the wagon wheel made by the the local town smith that was faulty, whether or not they signed up or not for that case, whether they were bound by that decision. And it's a little counter intoive to think about that, like who cares if if Goody Smith isn't a part of this case, maybe he doesn't care that his wagon wheel is faulty or not. But what this does, if you look at it on the other side, is Goody Smith can't like, once they settle this thing, Goody Smith can't come along and then say, well, I want to see you separately. So then Goody Smith couldn't come come around later, or I guess until they changed it, he could come around later and sue again. But they had to work all this out. They were like, that's not fair. You can't have this big civil case, have someone technically be a part of it but not assigned to it, and then later on try and get their own separate damages. Right So, but but I mean that's I think how it was for a good almost a century, a little over a century, where you could say, like, I didn't have anything to do with this thing. Goody by the way, short for good wife. So it's like Mrs Smith, well, I was just kidding around anyway. So um yeah, but like the the the ninth grade crucible reader in me could not just let that pass. Remember that play? I do? I love it? Um. So the thing is like for a good century, like if you if even if you were considered somebody who would be a member of that class, if you hadn't signed onto this lawsuit, you could come back around and say I didn't have anything to do with that, like I want to sue you myself. And that did kind of make things unwieldy because one of the purposes nowadays for filing a class action lawsuit, at least as are as like the defendant, like say the big corporation is concerned, is to just settle this once and for all, and so Eventually they came up with something called Rule forty eight, which UM started to kind of um include. It was like the birth of the rules for class action lawsuits UM and Rule forty eight morphed into Rule twenty three, Rule twenty three. Eventually nineteen sixty six said you know what, We're just going to say this, if you qualify as a member of a class action class, even if you have nothing to do with this, if you don't sign on, you're considered bound to the decision, which means if you, if like the people suing these people lose, you can't go back and and sue them again and try yourself. You're bound by that decision. And in nineteen sixty six they said, well, how are we going to do this? And they said, well, we need to just notify people, give people the option to say I don't want to have anything to do with the suit because I do want to see these people on my own. And as long as you've give them that option, the whole thing seemed pretty fair. Yeah. Ninety seven was when the Supreme Court first adopted these rules of civil procedure and the beginnings of Rule twenty three. And this is when they sort of just dissolved a lot of the separation between the law courts and equity courts. But it was until sixty six that they finally realized that was an issue. And they also, I mean, it's a pretty um, it's a pretty dense thing Rule twenty three. That was a lot that went on, and then that was admitted again in two thousand five with the Class Action Fairness Act, which among other things, said that, um, you know, if it's over five million bucks, then this has gotta go to federal court, federal district court because that's too much money. Um. Another one of the things from the Fairness Act of two thousand five is it laid out some other criteria aside from the five million bucks. Um. It said that any case involving planeiffs or of defendants from like a bunch of ferent states. So if it's like all across the country basically, and they call that diversity jurisdiction, then the federal court can actually, uh, it has to go to federal court under that case, right. And then also if it's a hundred people are over it, typically a hundred hundred plaintiffs are over it typically goes to federal court. And I get the impression federal courts is basically like, we're a little more equipped for this, this the complexities and intricacies of a class action lawsuit. That's the impression I have to you. Yeah, I mean, I think they're just set up for it. Um. I imagine it would be tough for a state court to handle a case like Firestone Bridge Stone with that many hundreds of thousands of people, maybe even millions. I don't know how many eventual plaintiffs there were, but that's a lot of tires. So I think that's true. But I also feel like this whole thing smacks of federal courts just basically being like, you know, let's just admit it. That's state courts are run by hay seeds and yokels. That's what it smells like to me. There's definitely the undercurrent rules state court rules, that's right. So, um that Rule twenty three, which again is very dense, as you said, but it's also ominous sounding if you ask me, Rule twenty three sounds like it's gonna mess you up pretty good. Um. But it's basically the body of understanding for class action lawsuits that's been established, you know, since the thirties up to two thousand five with the Class Action Fairness Act, like you were saying, and if you read it, you can basically get a pretty good idea of what has to happen for a class action lawsuit to go forward. Um. Apparently each state has its own rules, but as far as the federal districts are concerned, UM rule twenty three is is it? And the first thing you have to do is you have to become certified as a class like your your lawsuit has to go from it's is me suing you know, um, Exxon for the oil spill. Two. I've got all these other neighbors and cannary owners around here who are all affected by this oil spill. Um, and we think we we have a good case against Exxon. And very importantly, we all have the same kind of harm. We have a common complaint, which is Exon spilled a bunch of oil, messed up our livelihood and our lives um. And we all you know, because we all have the same kind of case. The defense Exxon could mount the same defense against all of these complaints, so we would probably be certified as as a class. Yeah, Like you know, the common defense in the case of like Aaron Brockovich that movie. I can't remember the name of the company that was a defendant, but who wasn't Pacific Gas and Electricity, the one who keeps setting off wildfires out in California. So they couldn't then have a defense. Um, one defense against like a certain number of people and are certain kind of person in town, Let's say it's probably more applicable, and then another for another kind of person in town. They had to mount a common defense. It's basically, I think all about equity, are making things equitable among kind of for both sides. Yeah, which I thought was pretty interesting. Um, and only you know, you have to get certified, and only of lawsuits that are filed a class action even get certification to begin with. Yeah, and the reason that was lower than I thought, but I guess it also makes sense. Um. What I could not find is this, Chuck, what happens to the original lawsuit, the original plaintiff if they're not certified as a class there as a class action lawsuit, but you can probably just go sue on your own. And I don't know, I cannot find out the way that I couldn't find out was the case that first piqued my interest about that was UM Duke's versus Walmart. I think it was Dukes that all were versus Walmart, which turned out to be the biggest class action class ever created. It consisted of one and a half million women who had been employed. It's bigger than the US military, by the way, but they were every woman who was employed by Walmart UM between I think uh nine any time after UM and the whole the whole lawsuit was that Walmart was basically promoting men more quickly and giving men more resources to advance into management positions than women. And the idea was that if you were a woman, you were harmed by this, uh equally. So it made sense that that that this would get certified as a class action suit because any woman who worked for Walmart would have been harmed by not having the opportunity to advance. But then Walmart argued and said, well, you know there's no national or company wide policy that says you can't advance women, you can advance men more quickly. That all of these advancement decisions are made up of thousands and thousands of local decisions. So since there were so many different decisions that affected all these different women. This class doesn't make sense. And they actually went went all the ways Supreme Court and Supreme courts at Walmart's right. This is this doesn't make sense as a class action suit because all of the harms could have been for different reasons, carried up at different people. Um. But the reason that does make sense to have that that certification clause is because any defendant has a right to defend themselves against any accusation in court. And so if everybody's accusing them of the same harm, then it makes sense of certifying them together as a class. If there's different harms that aren't quite the same, then the defendant should be able to defend against that that accusation, that accusation, that accusation, and you shouldn't lump all those people together into a whole class. Right. So the judges in charge of defining the class. Uh, And like we said, it's gotta you know, it's gotta be specific to the problem. Uh. At hand, it can't be all Bridgetone tire owners it was, unless it's all bridge Stone tires. But it's it turned out it was just this one tire on this one car. And so you have to really define that like if you have this car during these years, Uh, then you are part of this class. And um, from that point it has the notification that we talked about has to take place. Whether it's you know, you've seen TV commercials probably to have this kind of thing. Uh, you see advertisements in the newspaper, you probably get a mailer. It depends on how broad it is. Um, they're not gonna do a TV commercial if they don't need to, because that costs money obviously, uh. And that's an expense. But they're gonna notify everyone, uh, pretty in pretty quick order because what they want is for every do you know they were a part of this class, that's a part of that class, and whether or not you want to opt in or out. Uh. And if you opt out and you are within the scope of that class, you can you can do so if you want to. If it's I'm not sure why anyone for these like kind of small things that seemed to happen a lot, would opt out. Uh. I think they probably just count on people ignoring that kind of thing their check for five dollars in the mail, but doing anything, Yeah, you can't opt out if you're I don't know if you're a person who's just like I don't want my name on any list, and I don't want to be a part of any you know, if you're kind of a uh, paranoid type as far as the government and court cases go, you may want to opt out just to not be a part of something so small. Well, the I think the reason that they included is because if you are some Let's say you are somebody who um whose house was washed away by the oil spill at the of the X on L D s UM. But the class action lawsuit was everyone who was affected by the oil, so it would include people whose houses lived or whose houses were a mile away, whose front yards got covered in oil. Well, you'd be like, wait a minute, whatever they're gonna get is nothing like what I need the damages that I'm seeking, So I'm gonna opt out. Um And because they can't yeah, and because there's tons of real reasons to opt out. The five dollar check coming from the credit card company. Sure, but I'm saying like they can't differentiate who's who's getting that mailer from who's not, which is why they put the onus on the person getting that mailer. Seeing that TV commercial to say, oh, I need to opt out because I need to sue them on my own. I can't be part of this class because when that settlement is reached and they say everybody's gonna get five dollars for the for the trouble. Um, that's what you got for your house being washed away, you know what I mean. Yeah, So then the judge is actually gonna appoint the council, which is different than how it usually works. The judge is going to look at this and say, um, and this is for uh, I think for defense only, right. I guess the judge can change the plaintiff, but it's typically the lawyer who actually files the case. I think it's unusual for the judge to overrule that unless it's someone who just doesn't have the responsibility or maybe that kind of background. Sure, yeah, I mean I think like, if um, somebody walked in with the Johnson and Johnson complaint in the you know, the lawyer was just like a local ambulance chaser, they probably would get replaced with like a larger national firm that had the resources or the understanding, that had like contexts and like the um um uh professional um witness field. As far as like medic medicine and cancer is concerned, Like that guy just wouldn't have the resources, so he might be changed. But yeah, I'm guessing it's probably rare. Um But the point is that the judge has the ability to who decide who is the lawyer for the plaintiffs in the class action. Yeah, I think it's probably more rare because lawyers understand this and they probably wouldn't file if they knew that they would be replaced, unless it's just to get it going and they know they're going to be replaced, Like and what was the breaking bad's been a better call Saul? When they I think in like season two or something, when they figure out that the nursing home is taking advantage of the seniors overcharging them. Like the first thing that Saul Saul did was go to the larger firm and say, like, we need to partner up because he knew he couldn't handle it himself. That's what I'm guessing happens. Yeah, and then, uh, I didn't see better call Saul, But that sounds right to me. Oh you didn't. It's not pretty good. It's not breaking bad, but it doesn't seek to be breaking bad. You know what I mean. Yeah, I've heard a lot of people said, like it better, but I could see that it's a difference. Um. And then eventually the judge and again you know if you haven't noticed, and it's sort of like in the early days, the judge has a lot of a lot more say in class action cases than a lot of other kinds of cases, really making a lot of decisions that they don't get to decide in other kinds of cases. In this case, one of the final things they get to decide is the distribution of damages. And they you know, they use other people for insight, They develop a plan with people on their team, but they developed this plan to distribute whatever monetary damages, if it's you know, three billion dollars, they're going to figure out how to approve that settlement and how to distribute that settlement, including this is a very key thing, as we'll see later, including how much those attorneys are going to get paid. Right. Um, So you want to take a break and then come back and talk about some of the advantages and disadvantages of class action suits. Yeah, let's do it. Yah, Stop you know stopping? Shouldn't you know? Stop? You know? Stopping, shouldn't you know? So? One of the big advantages obviously something we already mentioned, um, a lot of people. There's power in numbers. A lot of people is more significant than one person, and a lot of people pulling their resources is more significant. Lawsuits cost a lot of money and in many, many cases, it is not worth it for someone to go after a company for you know, you kind of just have to do the math, like how much is this gonna cost me, what's the potential payout? Is it worth the risk? Whereas if you can band together with a bunch of other people, it's a huge, huge advantage, right. One of the other advantages is um the more people you have, the more damages are going to be awarded if the planeiffs win, which means you're going to start attracting increasingly higher caliber lawyers to your cause who could be your your class counsel. And the reason why is because in cases where you're seeking damages, lawyers often don't get paid unless they win. But if you win, then the lawyers get a big fat pay day out of it. So the bigger the class, the better the law firm um or legal team representing that class is probably going to be at least more experienced, you know, yeah, for sure. Another huge advantage is is that you're going to get your case hurt. If individual cases, they go first come, first serve. So if an individual brings a big lawsuit and they win, that company might be out of business before you can even get your suit going. And if you're part of a class action lawsuit, it's going to make sure that everybody gets there p to the pie basically exactly. So, Um, there's a lot of reasons to do this. Another another one too, is it makes sense for um corporations. They have an incentive to try to settle fairly with a class action suit because it will handle it will make this big years long, sometimes decade long problems um go away finally, once and for all. Yeah. And you know, there's a lot of press that comes along with a class action suit. Yeah, far more pressed than than an individual case. So it definitely behooves the defense to try and get these things wrapped up quickly because it's just bad news for them. Yeah. And on the same on the other side of that same coin, Chuck, like that large amount of press that gets generated by these big, big cases also kind of keeps corporate mouth feasans in line, you know, makes the company. It probably does more than if we didn't have such things as class action suits. But that's one of the theoret go buy products about that. Yeah, I got some property to you. Is it called the Brooklyn Bridge. It's wonderful. So. Um, there are some problems with class action suits. They're not the candy land that we've described them as entirely. Um. Instead, there's there's a lot of um frivolous class action suits that have been filed over the years, um by lawyers who are looking to make a fast buck, in part using that bad press as a threat, like do you really want this to be you know, to get dragged out in court, Just go ahead and settle, and you know, I'm the lawyer. I'll take my big fat cut. Um. And that's a that's a big problem actually, and that's a big perceived problem too, that class uh class council walk away, you know, whistling and laughing all the way to the bank, while the individual members are just getting five bucks for their their problems, even though they're the ones who had the thing befall them in the first place. Yeah. Um. And also, you know, if you choose. Like, let's use that exon example. If you get bad legal advice in your house was destroyed more than other people's property, and you don't opt out, you can't then say, oh, well, you know I only got this much. My whole house was destroyed. I really want to bring a lawsuit again. You can't do that unless you opt out. So that is a disadvantage that you that's sort of your one shot basically at any compensation. Yeah, I think the rule of thumb is if you didn't even know that this wrong had befallen you, it's probably not that big of a deal, and you're not gonna want to opt out because then that means you have to hire your own lawyer and go through the trouble of suing somebody, which is never pleasant or fun. Um. So, like I was saying, like those those class lawyers are a favorite target of tort reformists and critics because, um, the the if the plainiffs win and the judge rules in the plane of favor, one of the things that judge will do is figure out what the compensation is for the lawyer. Uh is going to be a lot of times that comes out of the settlement right, Like, if everybody gets ten billion dollars, the judge will say, well, you attorney who led this case in your law firm and your legal team, you're gonna get this fee. And I was reading up on it, and it sounds like it's fairly arbitrary. There's no good rule of thumb. And in fact, lawyers who represent class actions, um may actually get a lower percentage fee than they would if they were representing somebody on an individual basis. But the thing is, these payouts can be so huge that even if it's a really small percentage, it's going to be just this incredibly large amount in real numbers. And so a lot of people are like that, I didn't earn that. They didn't they didn't deserve that, especially when they find out that, you know, a million people got a coupon for half of a free tire from Firestone for having deadly tires on their car for ten years. Yeah, those are and they you know, they tried to um, they tried to rectify that in part of the the c a f A. The Class Action Fairness Active two thousand five. With these coupon settlements, those really rubbed me the wrong way. Um. It wasn't a class action suit, but there was something involved. At one point, I was a season ticket holder for the Atlanta Falcons and I can't remember what the deal was. Now, it wasn't a class action suit, but there was something to where they wronged the season ticket holders in some financial way. Terrible playing. Yeah, we should have brought the class action suit for the past thirty five years. Those North Georgia people would join it, yeah exactly, but they um, they did that coupon thing, and they were like, well, because of whatever it was, this upcoming season, you'll season ticket holders will get off anything from the Falcons merch store. And that just really me. It's like because they're just you're spending more like the people that fall for that, or just giving them even more money. That's a big criticism is that it and it it establishes or keeps established an ongoing uh commercial relationship between the person who wronged you and you the person suing them. Uh. And that is a big criticism. Some people say a good A good reply to that is just have cash settlements or UM. You could have a whole product settlement like UM, rather than you having a coupon for some percentage off, so you still have to give them money. They say, we'll give you the jersey of your choice, free and clear, and you never have to see us again, or maybe even like from the NFL dot com stort, it doesn't even have to be like a foul a falcon's jersey. That's a solution to that too. But one of the big problems was lawyers who were representing these coupon cases. Um, they were taking a percentage of the entire value of the ponds, right, And so what Kafa in two thousand five or six sought to change was saying, like, you really shouldn't do that because a lot of people don't actually redeem that. So you shouldn't get a percentage of the people's coupons who are never going to redeem that coupon. You should get a portion of the coupons that are going to be redeemed. And that is just as hard. Figuring out how many coupons are going to be redeemed is as hard as it sounds from what I understand. Yeah, and this there's one case in two thousand thirteen that you sent over that was pretty interesting. There was a teenager. His name was that guy who measured his subway sandwich his foot long. We he was Australian, so say it in Australian. He was that guy. Uh, And he measured his foot long and it was only eleven inches long, and he took it to attorney Jackie Childs, and then Jackie Childs didn't take the case, and so the kid went away. And then another kid measured his sandwich and his name was well actually, and he actually got this thing taken to court because he didn't have a twelve inch sub on his from his subway sandwich. It it baked up a little bit short, yes, and that was an actual case. Of course, I'm getting around about those names. But um, although I wish I wasn't. Uh, the attorneys there, we're gonna get over a half a million dollars in fees for what ended up being no pay out whatsoever, just Subway saying we'll we'll make these things bake up to twelve inches. Now, well, Subway even said we can't guarantee that we cannot. They're like bread doesn't bake in exactly the same way. It's just that's not how it works. And the court eve intended to agree with that. But the point was no one was going to get anything, not even like a six inch sub nothing a free inch. Yeah, not even a free inch. You're just going to get you know, Subway will stay in business. But these lawyers were going to get a half a million dollars and the judges like, you know, I forget this, We're just gonna dismiss this entire case. That's right. Jackie Childs was very disappointed. There was also a similar um a similar one when when the Center for Science and the Public interests hire some lawyers to sue Coca Cola, who owned Vitamin Water at the time. Envitamin Water used to have this hilarious ad campaign where it promised all these ridiculous health benefits that any reasonable person knew were not true, and they were suing for that. They were actually suing because vitamin water didn't disclose how much sugar it had in it um. Even though it was ridiculous health claims, it was still kind of purporting to be healthy, and these the Center for the Science and the Public Interest was like, this is not healthy at all, and so they sued. Coca Cola didn't do anything but stopped I think advertising the way that they were. But those lawyers still got two point seven three million dollars in fees, even though no one else got anything of sugar and vitamin water. Yeah, I believe crazy tastes delicious. I don't. I don't. I didn't know it head sugar in it. That's I'm offended. That's why they got sued. Uh. And you know, there have been some very famous civil class action suits over the years. The largest ever obviously where the tobacco settlements, and that was by tenfold next to the second highest one, tobacco settlements. And I don't think it's over yet even UM two hundred and six billion dollars so far from that decision. Forty six states. Uh. The attorney generals from forty states were involved. UH. And they obviously couldn't pay that out all at once, but what they were ordered to do was UM pay out for medical costs for smoking related illness over the course of twenty five years UM. The next highest was the BP spill for twenty billion. Volkswagen comes in at number three with fourteen point seven billion, and that one was pretty significant and that it wasn't a coupon payout, it was it was a pretty good restitution. I think in that they said, you know what, we will actually buy back We'll fix your car for nothing, or we will buy back your car or d your lease with no penalty. And this is when Volkswagen cheated the software to try and cheat US emissions tests so wrong, it was a big scandal. Um, there's plenty of there are still like unfolding as we speak, like the Johnson and Johnson Malcolm powder one UM. If you watch Sveengoli or anything else on ME TV, you're probably well well versed in UM, the Boy Scout of America UM sex abuse case that's ongoing. Apparently brother was one of the first plaintiffs in that case. Oh I think I remember you talking about that. Yeah. Now there's like seventy thousand members of that class and growing. UM. And then there's if you've ever heard that ad for MEZO book, that's actually a MESO theely ooma guide that you will get sent to you by the lawyer of that class action UM settlement who's still looking for plaintiffs UM from against the asbestos manufacturers. So there's still plenty on going. Like now that we've talked about this, it'll be like that bider mine Hoff thing, well you you'll see class action ads on TV all the time, now, yeah, I mean there in Ron was a big one. Remember Finn Finn the diet drug, That was a big one. That was a three point eight billion dollar payout. UM the silicon breast implants, that was a big payout. Yes, But that one, from what I understand, was total bs. It was it was based on medical hysteria, and later science backed up the company's claims that they had nothing to do with. I think it was connective tissue disorder UM. The science. Nobody was carrying out the science. It was all basically paid testimony for the plaintiffs UM, who were not necessarily even scientists. And the on the other side. Nobody had any science. And then science came later on, but it was after this settlement had been reached for billions of dollars. That was a bit of a scam. It turns out. Did they get it back? I don't. I don't think so. Probably not. That's not how it works. I don't think so. Section suit, right, yeah, it's millions of people. You got anything else? I got nothing else? All right, Well, if you want to know more about class action lawsuits, just watch me TV. Uh. And since I said that, it's time for a listener mail. Hey guys, this is another coincidence email, and this one. You know, we eat a lot of these, like, Hey, I was listening to the show and there was a tornado near me or whatever on tornadoes, but I thought this one was special. Hey, guys, I was listening to the Fort Knox episode. In the listener letter about wetlands and having to be happening to be at a wetland, I might share I've had two very random coincidental things. A few years back. I was driving into the small town into a small town in southwest Colorado where I live, and one of you mentioned a penny farthing. Uh. If you don't know what a penny farthing is, dear listener, is the bicycle with that giant, giant front wheel and the tiny little back wheel from the what I mean with those nineteenth century I guess yeah, early the two. Um, I glanced over to the bike lane, and sure enough, there was a guy riding a penny fark thing. That is that is the most amazing thing I've heard in a long time. I've never seen one in real life, even I don't think I have. I think I've seen like an antique in the store or something like that, but I've never seen somebody riding. Although this would not be nearly as amazing if the person turns out to be writing from Brooklyn, because I'm sure that's a pretty common sight from Brooklyn to Colorado would be something else. Yeah, I guess. But one of the chances this guy's listening to that, that's amazing thing. That's it is astounding. And why were we even talking about Penny Farthings in the first place. You know, it's a good word. Uh. It was the first time I had seen one of those in that town I've lived in for twenty five years. Next was this summer, after dropping off some clients to put on your episode about ice climbing, just as I was driving out of town, Uh, to a to a mecca destination for ice climbers around the world. It's a little less impressive. Yeah, And that is from Sean and until you ride Colorado. Very nice, Sean, Thank you for the first anecdote, the second one, thanks for nothing. If you want to get in touch with this like Sean did, and tell us your best anecdote, we want to hear it. Um. You can get in touch with this via email at stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Stuff You Should Know

If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD,  
Social links
Follow podcast
Recent clips
Browse 2,500 clip(s)