Consumer Class Action Attorney
Secure Justice For Many Consumers At Once

Class action lawsuits group a large number of individualized claims into one representational lawsuit.  This benefits consumers having small claims, while serving as punishment and deterrent to the wrongdoers.

Class actions have been misunderstood by the public on a large scale, and targeted by large companies with negative media campaigns, which is unfortunate. They really can be useful and effective tools against corporate misdeeds and abuse, and promote consumer protection.

The preamble to the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, passed by the United States Congress, found: "Class-action lawsuits are an important and valuable part of the legal system when they permit the fair and efficient resolution of legitimate claims of numerous parties by allowing the claims to be aggregated into a single action against a defendant that has allegedly caused harm."

Purpose of Class Action

First, grouping together individual claims can increase the efficiency of the legal process, and lower the costs of litigation. In cases with common questions of law and fact, grouping claims into a class action may avoid the necessity of repeating "days of the same witnesses, exhibits and issues from trial to trial.

Second, a class action may overcome the problem that small recoveries do not provide the incentive for any individual to bring a solo action prosecuting his or her rights. A class action solves this problem by grouping the relatively paltry potential recoveries into something worth someone’s (usually an attorney’s) labor.

In other words, a class action ensures that a defendant who engages in widespread harm -- but does so minimally against each individual plaintiff -- must compensate those individuals for their injuries.

Class Action Example

Example: Class actions are usually most appropriate where this is a very large number of small value individual claims, where bringing the suit individually would not make any financial sense. For example, if your electric utility company tried to generate extra revenue by imposing a fake or hidden fee of $.10 on your electric bill every month for a year, you would be out a total of $1.20. Bringing a lawsuit for $1.20 simply would not be worth the time or effort, yet the electric utility company would be getting away with an unfair business practice.

If you instead brought a class action lawsuit on your own and on behalf of all the electric utility company’s customers who were charged that phony fee of $1.20, the potential damages could range in the millions. Justice on behalf of all the customers, achievable only through a class action.

Helping Consumers at Once in Single Proceeding

Perhaps even more important than compensation is that class treatment of claims may be the only way to impose the costs of wrongdoing on the wrongdoer, thus deterring future wrongdoing.

Third, in "limited fund" cases, a class action ensures that all plaintiffs receive relief and that early-filing plaintiffs do not raid the fund (i.e., the defendant) of all its assets before other plaintiffs may be compensated. Examples are securities fraud, mortgage fraud.  A class action in such a situation centralizes all claims into one Court, where the court can equitably divide the assets amongst all the victims if they win the case.

Finally, a class action avoids the situation where different court rulings could create "incompatible standards" of conduct for the defendant to follow.  This is why, often, many large corporate defendants prefer to resolve their wrongdoing in a single judicial proceeding.

Example:  A court might certify a case for class treatment where a number of individual bond-holders sue to determine whether they may convert their bonds to common stock. Refusing to litigate the case in one trial could result in different outcomes and inconsistent standards of conduct for the defendant corporation. Thus, courts will generally allow a class action in such a situation.

Class Action Lawsuit

Under the class action rules, the victim who files in many instances has the best chances of keeping the case local and being in charge of the litigation, even if other victims follow your lead and file later. Being first to file, therefore, can be critical to ensuring your rights and needs are protected.

If you have been the victim of financial loss because of consumer fraud, investment fraud, or wrongful conduct at the hands of large companies or financial institutions, then contact us today.  We work with established consumer class action law firms which may be able to help you through deceptive business practices, consumer fraud, or other consumer protection issue.