class action law suit

On Thu, 27 Jul 2006 21:44:29 -0700, SMS <[email protected]>
wrote in <[email protected]>:

>Scott wrote:
>
>> What gets me is that the purpose of the class action was to correct an
>> implied issue and the options above all provide some form of remedy to that
>> issue- the latter two actually completely resolve the issue. Those that
>> complain about a settlement like this are the reason for the problem with
>> class actions- they expect to gain from the action and not simply be made
>> whole. The courts have become the next best thing to the lottery in many
>> peoples' eyes.
>
>You may get an occasional instance where the plaintiff gains more than
>being made whole, i.e. in the mass torts for pharmaceuticals, but in
>those cases it's difficult to put a price on the permanent injury or death.
>
>In most cases, as in the Verizon case, the subscriber is made whole, and
>the corporation at least discloses what they are doing in advance, if
>they don't plan to actually change the underlying action that
>perpetuated the lawsuit.
>
>You get an occasional award that seems all out of proportion, and people
>latch onto these as examples of why tort reform is desperately needed.
>In many cases it's the corporations that were affected by the lawsuit
>that are behind the attempts to try to paint the result as excessive,
>even when it isn't. How many people actually read the facts on the
>McDonald's coffee case before forming judgement?

Class Action Dilemmas
Pursuing Public Goals for Private Gain, Executive Summary
RAND Corporation
<http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR969.1/index.html>

Class action lawsuits-allowing one or a few plaintiffs to represent
many who seek redress-have long been controversial. The current
controversy, centered on lawsuits for money damages, is characterized
by sharp disagreement among stakeholders about the kinds of suits
being filed, whether plaintiffs' claims are meritorious, and whether
resolutions to class actions are fair or socially desirable.
Ultimately, these concerns lead many to wonder, "Are class actions
worth their costs to society and to business? Do they do more harm
than good?" To describe the landscape of current damage class action
litigation, elucidate problems, and identify solutions, the RAND
Institute for Civil Justice conducted a study using qualitative and
quantitative research methods. The researchers concluded that the
controversy over damage class actions has proven intractable because
it implicates deeply held but sharply contested ideological views
among stakeholders. Nevertheless, many of the political antagonists
agree that class action practices merit improvement. The authors argue
that both practices and outcomes could be substantially improved if
more judges would supervise class action litigation more actively and
scrutinize proposed settlements and fee awards more carefully.
Educating and empowering judges to take more responsibility for case
outcomes-and ensuring that they have the resources to do so-can help
the civil justice system achieve a better balance between the public
goals of class actions and the private interests that drive them.

Also...

New Class Action Study
<http://www.pointoflaw.com/archives/000946.php>

In his new study, Professor Priest looks at the Eisenberg-Miller data
and reaches a very different conclusion, namely, that "class action
litigation is imposing extraordinary costs on American society," that
these high costs have persisted over a long period of time, and that
the case for reform is all the more compelling. Even taking the
Eisenberg-Miller dataset on its own terms, Professor Priest finds the
average class action recovery over the ten-year period they studied
was $138.6 million, which works out to an aggregate class action
recovery averaging $5.13 billion per year.

Moreover, Priest argues that the Eisenberg-Miller data set
significantly understates the overall magnitude of class action
litigation. Eisenberg and Miller only report data taken from published
opinions, and their data set is highly skewed toward securities
litigation, which constitute over half their sample. Over the entire
ten-year period, their data set includes only 9 civil rights class
actions, 23 employment class actions, 22 ERISA class actions, and 7
mass tort class actions. (By comparison, there were 2,133 class action
cases filed in federal courts in 1999 alone. We don't know the number
in state courts, but in 1999 there were 54 class actions filed in just
3 counties, Madison County, Illinois; Jefferson County, Texas; and
Palm Beach County, Florida. See Manhattan Institute Civil Justice
Report 3.)

Professor Priest also emphasizes that Eisenberg and Miller's study
does nothing to challenge some of the main criticisms of class action
litigation, such as the fact that mere certification of a class will
force defendants to settle rather than "betting their company,"
regardless of the evidence. Priest points out, for example, that the
Eisenberg-Miller data set includes the silicone breast litigation,
which settled for $4.2 billion even though strong scientific evidence
showed that breast implants did not cause the illnesses claimed in the
suit (see this Manhattan Institute study by Point of Law friend David
Bernstein).

In sum, Professor Priest finds that the case for class action reform
is strong. He thinks, however, that even though the Class Action
Fairness Act "will help" by "[m]oving class actions involving
significant different-state parties from state to federal courts,"
that ultimately "it is not likely to solve the problems created by
modern class action litigation," which are so entrenched that they
require a broader, more systemic reform.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

---

› See More: class action law suit

On Thu, 27 Jul 2006 19:02:24 -0700, SMS <[email protected]>
wrote in <[email protected]>:

>Scott wrote:
>
>> Neither link was specific to the case, Skippy. I guess this was some of
>> that information you gained from the Internet and not from any practical
>> experience of your own.
>
>Wouldn't matter, as Rand has no credibility--it's a corporate mouthpiece.

Rand is nonprofit and highly respected, with beginnings in the military,
not corporations.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Thu, 27 Jul 2006 09:56:00 -0700, SMS <[email protected]>
wrote in <[email protected]>:

>Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:
>
>> Cingular is part of the market, and thus, has an influence on the price of its
>> services. If people start suing wireless carriers frivolously, the prices
>> will go up or the product quality will go down.
>
>No, if the lawsuits are truly frivolous, the defendant will not only
>win, but will recover legal costs from the plaintiff. ...

Not when forced to settle by the risks of litigating.

> > Are you a lawyer? Most class members receive very little for
>participation.
> > Most lawyers receive a life style increase for their participation.
>
>Well of course. There are millions of people in some of these class
>actions, but only a few lawyers. In a typical 70/30 split, the members
>of the class get a lot more of the award, but less per person.

You're apparently confusing fee-based class actions with
contingency-based personal injury lawsuits.

> > Guess who is making out better; the lawyers or the victims.
>
>Depending on your view, the beauty of, or the problem with, class
>actions, is that they eventually have an effect on forcing a behavior
>change of the corporation. We've already seen this with wireless
>carriers, including Cingular and Verizon.

There's no real evidence of that.

> > Even when not true, they tend to settle ... because lawyers are
>expensive,
> > even when defending a frivolous suit [which I am not saying this is].
>
>If it's truly frivolous, then the defendants won't settle, ...

They will settle if the risks of litigating are too high, as they often
are.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Thu, 27 Jul 2006 08:23:09 -0700, SMS <[email protected]>
wrote in <[email protected]>:

>Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:
>> John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> lose, they've wasted their time and effort. The lawyers have to split
>>>> their percentage with a lot fewer people, so they make a lot more per
>>>> person, but the customers will get the bulk of the money.
>>> That's not what typically happens, as anyone that's been paying
>>> attention to actual settlements knows.
>>
>> Indeed, which is why so many people are pushing torte reform.
>
>It's not "many people" that are pushing torte <sic> reform, it's the
>corporations that get caught doing something illegal and don't like
>having to ante up that are pushing it.
>
>The real purpose of so-called "tort reform," is to shield large
>corporations, from having to pay compensation to consumers for the harm
>incurred from fraud, negligence, and product liability. They've duped
>many people into believing that there has been a huge explosion in the
>number of tort filings, when in fact the number of filings has been
>steadily declining.
>
>Incidentally, a torte is a type of a cake; I think you meant tort,
>unless you are trying to change the way in which cakes are made.

Class Action Dilemmas
Pursuing Public Goals for Private Gain, Executive Summary
RAND Corporation
<http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR969.1/index.html>

Class action lawsuits-allowing one or a few plaintiffs to represent
many who seek redress-have long been controversial. The current
controversy, centered on lawsuits for money damages, is characterized
by sharp disagreement among stakeholders about the kinds of suits
being filed, whether plaintiffs' claims are meritorious, and whether
resolutions to class actions are fair or socially desirable.
Ultimately, these concerns lead many to wonder, "Are class actions
worth their costs to society and to business? Do they do more harm
than good?" To describe the landscape of current damage class action
litigation, elucidate problems, and identify solutions, the RAND
Institute for Civil Justice conducted a study using qualitative and
quantitative research methods. The researchers concluded that the
controversy over damage class actions has proven intractable because
it implicates deeply held but sharply contested ideological views
among stakeholders. Nevertheless, many of the political antagonists
agree that class action practices merit improvement. The authors argue
that both practices and outcomes could be substantially improved if
more judges would supervise class action litigation more actively and
scrutinize proposed settlements and fee awards more carefully.
Educating and empowering judges to take more responsibility for case
outcomes-and ensuring that they have the resources to do so-can help
the civil justice system achieve a better balance between the public
goals of class actions and the private interests that drive them.

Also...

New Class Action Study
<http://www.pointoflaw.com/archives/000946.php>

In his new study, Professor Priest looks at the Eisenberg-Miller data
and reaches a very different conclusion, namely, that "class action
litigation is imposing extraordinary costs on American society," that
these high costs have persisted over a long period of time, and that
the case for reform is all the more compelling. Even taking the
Eisenberg-Miller dataset on its own terms, Professor Priest finds the
average class action recovery over the ten-year period they studied
was $138.6 million, which works out to an aggregate class action
recovery averaging $5.13 billion per year.

Moreover, Priest argues that the Eisenberg-Miller data set
significantly understates the overall magnitude of class action
litigation. Eisenberg and Miller only report data taken from published
opinions, and their data set is highly skewed toward securities
litigation, which constitute over half their sample. Over the entire
ten-year period, their data set includes only 9 civil rights class
actions, 23 employment class actions, 22 ERISA class actions, and 7
mass tort class actions. (By comparison, there were 2,133 class action
cases filed in federal courts in 1999 alone. We don't know the number
in state courts, but in 1999 there were 54 class actions filed in just
3 counties, Madison County, Illinois; Jefferson County, Texas; and
Palm Beach County, Florida. See Manhattan Institute Civil Justice
Report 3.)

Professor Priest also emphasizes that Eisenberg and Miller's study
does nothing to challenge some of the main criticisms of class action
litigation, such as the fact that mere certification of a class will
force defendants to settle rather than "betting their company,"
regardless of the evidence. Priest points out, for example, that the
Eisenberg-Miller data set includes the silicone breast litigation,
which settled for $4.2 billion even though strong scientific evidence
showed that breast implants did not cause the illnesses claimed in the
suit (see this Manhattan Institute study by Point of Law friend David
Bernstein).

In sum, Professor Priest finds that the case for class action reform
is strong. He thinks, however, that even though the Class Action
Fairness Act "will help" by "[m]oving class actions involving
significant different-state parties from state to federal courts,"
that ultimately "it is not likely to solve the problems created by
modern class action litigation," which are so entrenched that they
require a broader, more systemic reform.

--
Best regards,
John Navas

"Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea - massive,
difficult to redirect, awe inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind
boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it." --Gene Spafford