CLASS ACTIONS
Class action lawsuits are cases where a group of individuals who have suffered a similar harm sue an entity who has caused them harm. Class action lawsuits range from cases against pharmaceutical companies for defective drugs to discrimination cases against an employer. Traditionally, the Courts have discouraged these types of cases. The reason being that individuals each have different harms that they have suffered and it would be impossible to group all injured parties into one single case. However, some types of cases are perfect fits for class actions. For example, if one hundred people all took the same drug, manufactured by the same drug company and suffered the same injury it would appear that this is the text book case for a class action.
Unfortunately, the injured parties must prove that they are similarly situated and if any of the above factors is different, many courts would deny the class lawsuit. This would require each individual to separately go to court. This may result in one individual winning and another individual losing, despite the fact that they may have taken the same drug.
Recently a court denied a class action lawsuit for a group of workers who claimed that they were treated unfairly by their employer due to their race. Despite the fact that the workers were all of the same race and that the employer was the same, the Court refused to allow the class action. Since some of the workers claimed lost wages for failing to be promoted while others claimed they were wrongfully terminated, the court picked up on this small distinction and refused to grant the class action lawsuit. I still can’t figure out why.
