In modern financial and market practices, it is possible for a small time consumer to be ripped off by large corporate entities to accumulate a significant amount of undue profit. In such instances, the corporate entity or the organization in question may have deprived hundreds or even thousands of consumers small amounts of money although the accumulated wealth gained by the organization would be huge. However, because of the insignificant loss to individual consumers and due to the heavy costs involved in bringing litigation at a civil court, there may not be anyone coming forward to take these corporate entities to justice. Class action suits are therefore designed to facilitate a group of individuals to come forward with litigations against a designated entity to recover damages on behalf of all those who are concerned.
What is ‘personal injury’?
Before proceeding into class action suits, it is necessary to define ‘personal injury laws’ for better understanding. Personal injury refers to ‘a type of tort or civil wrong where harm is caused to one individual because another individual failed to use reasonable care.’ Thus, the personal injury law recognizes the ability to sue on a tort as grounds to recover losses due to an ‘injury,’ which may even include psychological injuries. Therefore, in personal injury law, liability is a key factor and in determining the same, the defendants have to establish that the individual who caused the harm did so because of his or her failure to exercise reasonable care. At the same time, it should also be established that it was foreseeable to all those concerned that by such negligence it was possible to cause injury or harm to another party.
What are the characteristics of class action suits?
When moving on to class action lawsuits, it has been recognized to occur in instances where ‘a group of similarly situated people have suffered injury arising from a common set of laws, facts and circumstances.’ Thus, out of many members of a ‘class,’ few would be chosen to represent as plaintiffs. However, at the very beginning of the litigation, the trial court ‘will be asked to certify the class.’ According to legal experts, the rulings on such certification could either accept, deny or grant a narrower certification than what was originally requested by the plaintiffs. The decision to deny or grant a narrower certification would be based on the fact that the ‘class’ or the group consists of significantly divergent claims, or its members have suffered injuries of a very divergent nature.
Following recognition as a ‘class,’ the judgments passed by the court would bind both the lead plaintiffs for the case, as well as the ones who are represented by the said plaintiff. In instances, where there is compensation to be made to the members of the class, it is the judge who will decide on the amounts awarded to each member of the class as well as for the lawyers representing the said class. The reason for this is that in most such litigations, the attorney fees is paid through the recovered money.
However, it is possible for some class actions to seek injunctive relief or a declaratory judgment rather than claiming for monetary damages. At the same time, it is possible for certain class law suits to claim more than one remedy and any member in the class can file objections to a proposed settlement if they disagree.