Video Transcript: Good Class Actions
Certain types of cases make for a good class actions. And the types of cases that we’re talking about are where the evidence or the facts are basically the same for all of the people involved.
- Some examples would be a defective car or a defective product. Everybody who bought that product basically has the same case. And so they’re going to use the same evidence, the same witnesses, the same documents to prove their case.
- Another example would be a wage-an-hour case where people aren’t paid overtime. If you’re not being paid overtime, it’s likely that your co-employees are also not being paid overtime.
- A third example is called an antitrust case or an anti-competitive case where a couple businesses conspire to rig the market or price fix, have a monopoly of some sort. Well, everybody who’s affected by that in the marketplace is essentially laboring under the same problems. Again, they’re going to have the same evidence, same witnesses. The legal term that describes all that is called commonality. And in the class action world, that’s the test for a class action. Cases that have commonality are good class actions.