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Mar. 18th, 2007 05:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sorrowmonkeyFinished reading Civil Procedure. The most recent chapter was on class-action suits. Ick. Maybe I would feel differently about it if I felt like corporations and professionals were generally the problem in our society. I think that those groups cause problems, sure, but I think that generally there are many "checks" on bad behavior, from general capitalist principles to the plethora of legal remedies.
One of the principal public policy justifications for class-action suits is that the individual claims aren't enough to justify litigation on their own. I'm not sure that this is really a worthwhile use of judicial time, nor do I think it actually works very well. As an example, imagine that all of the people that bought the salmonella tainted peanut butter were certified as a class. Suppose that the class won the lawsuit, or (much more likely) that the manufacturer settled for $175 million. Do you know how that works out in the end? All 300 million people who bought the peanut butter get a coupon for 25 cents off their next purchase of peanut butter (from that manufacturer, no less!), and the attorneys get the rest ($100M). What did we really achieve here?
I'm much more interested in suits that vindicate the rights of the citizen against the state. Unfortunately, courts generally aren't real interested in hearing these types of suits, particularly if those rights are constitutional in nature. Sort of shame really, but I suppose we made it this way. States and Federal governments are frequently excused (by statute) from paying attorney's fees, and officials generally have at least some level of immunity from suit. Toss in the goofy rules that the Supreme Court has cobbled together called "standing," and you get a government with pretty much a free hand to make trouble.
I wonder if you can combine class-action suits with 42 USC Sec. 1983 Civil Rights claims. I have some real complaints about things, and my representatives seem too busy doling out pork projects and salary increases to deal with anything that looks like a real problem.
Would you believe this post was originally going to be about the driveway? I dug out the Mustang and the Nissan, but there is still thirty feet of uncleared driveway behind them. I guess I'll leave that project for tomorrow.
One of the principal public policy justifications for class-action suits is that the individual claims aren't enough to justify litigation on their own. I'm not sure that this is really a worthwhile use of judicial time, nor do I think it actually works very well. As an example, imagine that all of the people that bought the salmonella tainted peanut butter were certified as a class. Suppose that the class won the lawsuit, or (much more likely) that the manufacturer settled for $175 million. Do you know how that works out in the end? All 300 million people who bought the peanut butter get a coupon for 25 cents off their next purchase of peanut butter (from that manufacturer, no less!), and the attorneys get the rest ($100M). What did we really achieve here?
I'm much more interested in suits that vindicate the rights of the citizen against the state. Unfortunately, courts generally aren't real interested in hearing these types of suits, particularly if those rights are constitutional in nature. Sort of shame really, but I suppose we made it this way. States and Federal governments are frequently excused (by statute) from paying attorney's fees, and officials generally have at least some level of immunity from suit. Toss in the goofy rules that the Supreme Court has cobbled together called "standing," and you get a government with pretty much a free hand to make trouble.
I wonder if you can combine class-action suits with 42 USC Sec. 1983 Civil Rights claims. I have some real complaints about things, and my representatives seem too busy doling out pork projects and salary increases to deal with anything that looks like a real problem.
Would you believe this post was originally going to be about the driveway? I dug out the Mustang and the Nissan, but there is still thirty feet of uncleared driveway behind them. I guess I'll leave that project for tomorrow.
