As lawyers, we throw around lots of fancy words and terms we learn in law school. We’ve even made up a word for it – legalese. As a new feature to our blog, I will be breaking down some of the more common terms that the lawyers of our firm use on a regular basis. This week, I’ll answer the question: what’s a class action? It’s a question we can answer easily, because here at Barrios, Kingsdorf & Casteix, LLP, we specialize in class action work in many fields, from personal injury to products liability to false advertising. Don’t worry — those terms are coming up in future primer posts!
A class action is a lawsuit where a few people sue a defendant on behalf of a larger group of people that have all been injured by the same conduct, have a similar injury, and are seeking to recover based on similar legal theories. In a class action, not every injured person (or plaintiff) needs to be listed or named.
Some other points about class actions:
- How can you tell if something is a class action right away? Usually in the case caption, in the first few paragraphs, or every time you see the names of the plaintiffs, you will almost always see this phrase: ”on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated.”
- You will also almost always see what’s called a class definition, which lets the court and defendants know what people the named class representatives seek to represent.
- Just because something is called a class action, though doesn’t mean that it meets the requirements of being one. In federal court, the requirements are set out in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26. At a certain point in any litigation, the judge overseeing the case will need to determine whether the case can proceed as a class action. Until that time, the class action is called a “putative” class action. Once the judge gives the thumbs up, the class is “certified.”
- At its core, a class action is a procedural device that saves everyone’s resources. If 1,000 people have been harmed the same way by the same conduct of the same defendant, it would be wasteful to file 1,000 separate lawsuits — one for each plaintiff — against the same defendant all saying the same thing. Instead, one suit can be filed naming a few plaintiffs as representatives of the larger class of injured plaintiffs.
- In certain situations, it allows plaintiffs who have a valid claim to bring it when it wouldn’t otherwise be economically feasible. For instance, if you have a valid claim for $100, and you decided to hire a lawyer and pursue it yourself, you’d likely come out losing financially in the end because of the costs involved in litigation. However, if you have 1,000 people who all have the same $100 injury from a corporation, that corporation is more likely to listen and take your claims seriously. In short, class actions are yet another vehicle to justice.
Class actions come in all different varieties and can be based on all sorts of different legal theories. At their core, they’re really a procedural device that is extremely helpful if an attorney knows how to use them well. For the last 15 years, our firm has been working on numerous class actions, and founding partner Dawn M. Barrios has been recognized for her pre-eminence in the field.
Zachary L. Wool, a lawyer with Barrios, Kingsdorf & Casteix, LLP, authored this blog post. He would REALLY appreciate comments on this new “Legal Primer” feature, which you can leave in the comments field of email to him at zwool@bkc-law.com.
