Class Action Lawsuits: Millions for Lawyers, Nothing for Consumers, Ruin for Businesses
Manufacturers of consumer goods in the United States have a lot to fear from the government, and becoming the target of a class action lawsuit is right up there in the first tier of those concerns. An astounding 52 percent of major corporations are engaged in class action litigation right now. Federal judges have complete discretion about whether to certify a class action lawsuit, and then whether to approve large attorney fee requests. Once certified as a federal class action, an otherwise small lawsuit turns into a massive cash drain for the target company and a money machine for the lawyers.
The real goal of many of these lawsuits is to extract a large attorney fee for the law firm bringing the case. The class of alleged consumer victims — their clients — is often a secondary concern, and is usually left with relatively little financial benefit, sometimes merely a few cents.
Class action lawsuits were originally set up to make it easier for a large group of people, all of whom were allegedly harmed by a defendant, to sue as a group. Class actions are defined on Lawyer.com as follows:
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