Imagine what the impact would be on the judicial system if thousands of people with the same legal complaint filed separate lawsuits against a defendant for damages they suffered owing to, say, a defective product.
The systemic costs would be overwhelming. The inefficiencies resulting from such a high number of individual claims would be outsized. And the results would be highly varied and, in some cases, long-delayed.
There is an antidote to such maladies. As pointed out in an online overview discussing class action lawsuits, the class action format exists to better enable high numbers of litigants with the same legal problem to present their claims and pursue justice through meaningful remedies.
A clear and immediate benefit of a class action filing is its comparative efficiency. As the above primer notes, class action litigation “brings together and disposes of thousands of claims at one time that are impractical to litigate individually,” with one judge ruling in a single instance regarding the entire group of plaintiffs.
Certain types of lawsuits often feature as class actions, including the following types of claims:
- Defective product s
- Pharmaceutical and medical device shortcomings
- Motor vehicle-related defects
- Consumer fraud
And those areas of concern span just a small area of the class action universe.
It obviously makes sense for any individual or family and others similarly situated who have suffered injuries owing to a product or other cause to seek legal advice regarding the possibility of a class action filing.
The aforementioned overview notes the advisability of consulting with an attorney “who is experienced in representing classes of injured people in this specific type of lawsuit.”