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How Class Action Lawsuits Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, A production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
0:15
Speaker 1: um Legal, Egal Clark. There's Chuck Man that was gonna
0:22
Speaker 1: be Jerry's all right, well, Jerry can be Robert Redford,
0:27
Speaker 1: so Chuck, Deborah Winger Bryant, and then Jerry Robert Redford,
0:33
Speaker 1: Roland And this is stuff you should know. I never
0:37
Speaker 1: saw that movie, really, yeah, I just want you know.
0:40
Speaker 1: I was gonna too young for a legal procedural, I think,
0:44
Speaker 1: and then I just never caught up to it. Not
0:47
Speaker 1: just a legal procedural, a romance one too, Yeah, boring.
0:52
Speaker 1: I saw it a bunch of times when I was
0:54
Speaker 1: younger for some reason. I guess my mom must have
0:56
Speaker 1: been into it or something. Now is just a long
0:58
Speaker 1: for the ride, right exactly. Yeah, but it was good
1:00
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly, We're uh, yeah, it was a
1:06
Speaker 1: good I mean, you can't go wrong with either one
1:08
Speaker 1: of those two, you know, wasn't there a third? Uh?
1:14
Speaker 1: Legal Eagles three Olympus has fallen? I think there a
1:20
Speaker 1: third person in that. Wouldn't it a romantic triangle? Or
1:22
Speaker 1: am I just making that up? I don't know, I
1:27
Speaker 1: don't I think you're there's the Last Days of Disco.
1:30
Speaker 1: I'm looking now, Darryll Hannah's on the cover, so she
1:33
Speaker 1: might have been popped in for a tasteful nude. Then
1:36
Speaker 1: she probably plays a big she convulsives on the floor. Um,
1:41
Speaker 1: you know she's married to right, No, Neil Young, I
1:46
Speaker 1: didn't know that. I could totally see that now that
1:48
Speaker 1: you say it, though. Yeah, they're the reason that Neil
1:51
Speaker 1: Young and David Cross or David Cross would be funny.
1:54
Speaker 1: David Crosby don't speak to each other anymore. Why did
1:57
Speaker 1: did David Crosby used to like Daryl Hannah. No, he's
2:00
Speaker 1: he's just a big jerk, and he like said something
2:03
Speaker 1: about her in an interview that wasn't nice, like right
2:05
Speaker 1: when they got together. Gez problem dead to me, He's
2:11
Speaker 1: he's a notorious jerk. I didn't even know that, but
2:14
Speaker 1: I could kind of see it. You know, he admits it.
2:18
Speaker 1: That's even worse. I think that's worse. People who are like,
2:22
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just a jerk. Deal with it. It's like, no,
2:25
Speaker 1: why don't you change your personality a little bit to
2:27
Speaker 1: conform a little better to the rest of our expectations?
2:30
Speaker 1: You s ob well, let me rephrase that. He and
2:34
Speaker 1: this is all coming from the great, great documentary about him,
2:36
Speaker 1: recent one. He is he admits it and has deep
2:40
Speaker 1: regrets over how he treated people. Oh well that's good. Yeah,
2:46
Speaker 1: who regrets his behaviors? That makes it easier to kick
2:48
Speaker 1: somebody when they're down. You know, if they're like, deal
2:50
Speaker 1: with it, you can't bring them down to your level
2:52
Speaker 1: and kick them. But if they're like, I really regret everything,
2:56
Speaker 1: you'd be like, yeah, you should really rub it in,
2:59
Speaker 1: you know, especially as an old man. Sure, exactly so. Um. Obviously, today, Chuck,
3:06
Speaker 1: we're talking about class action lawsuits. I think anybody who
3:10
Speaker 1: could read the stuff you should know Tea Leaves could
3:13
Speaker 1: have discerned that, or they could have just looked at
3:15
Speaker 1: the title of the episode. Yeah you know something that
3:19
Speaker 1: It occurred to me while we were doing researching this,
3:21
Speaker 1: Like most I don't know about most, but many people
3:25
Speaker 1: listening to this show have maybe even unknowingly been a
3:29
Speaker 1: part of a class action lawsuit. Sure, I know I have.
3:32
Speaker 1: I have to. I've gotten those little emails that say,
3:35
Speaker 1: you know you got coming to you from whatever, right
3:40
Speaker 1: You're like, every bit of your personal information was stolen
3:43
Speaker 1: in the Equifax breach. So Aquifax is going to give
3:46
Speaker 1: you some identity theft protection or a discount, which is
3:51
Speaker 1: that's always the rub. Yeah, a lot of people probably
3:54
Speaker 1: have been a part of a class action lawson. You
3:56
Speaker 1: may not have been, may not have paid attention to it.
3:58
Speaker 1: You may have gotten one of those things in the
4:00
Speaker 1: mail and just been like what is this? Who cares?
4:02
Speaker 1: Or even if you read the fine print, you might
4:04
Speaker 1: have been like this is literally not worth my time
4:07
Speaker 1: and responding for. But there's a lot of things that
4:10
Speaker 1: happened in the fact by by the virtue of you
4:15
Speaker 1: not responding to whatever card or something you saw, or
4:18
Speaker 1: even like an ad on TV apparently qualifies as notifying
4:23
Speaker 1: somebody that, hey, you may be a member of this
4:26
Speaker 1: class action lawsuit. Yeah. I um, this kind of came
4:30
Speaker 1: up recently in my life and that I've mentioned before
4:33
Speaker 1: that I'm on a Facebook page of a community in
4:35
Speaker 1: rural Georgia where I have some land in rural Georgia,
4:39
Speaker 1: And uh, there are some Donald Trump's reporters that were
4:43
Speaker 1: pretty upset that we're asking if they could bring a
4:46
Speaker 1: class action lawsuit to overturn the election. Uh, presumably because
4:52
Speaker 1: they don't like the result. But I didn't get involved
4:55
Speaker 1: and jump in there and say, you know, you, like
4:57
Speaker 1: what kind of damage is you gonna prove or whatever, UM,
5:00
Speaker 1: because I think it would be interesting to try and
5:03
Speaker 1: prove emotional and psychological damage for an election result. That
5:08
Speaker 1: would be an interesting case. But that is I mean
5:11
Speaker 1: that is it would be like most of the cases
5:14
Speaker 1: around the election it turns out. But with the um.
5:17
Speaker 1: With with that though, like you've kind of hit upon
5:20
Speaker 1: a few things here, That the idea that there's a
5:23
Speaker 1: group of people who were wronged in some way in
5:26
Speaker 1: similar ways, who on their own might not get anywhere
5:30
Speaker 1: with the case, but collectively like pulling together there their
5:34
Speaker 1: resources UM or they're the multiple harms done UM like
5:40
Speaker 1: taking those individual harms and tournament in one big, mushy pile.
5:44
Speaker 1: That's the basis of a class action lawsuit. And it
5:46
Speaker 1: really kind of gets to the heart of why they exist,
5:50
Speaker 1: and that is that a lot of times, UM, you're
5:54
Speaker 1: suing like like a big giant corporation with enormous resources
5:58
Speaker 1: at their disposed of, they can you all day long
6:01
Speaker 1: until not only does the lawsuit go away, but you
6:04
Speaker 1: don't have any money left. And when you really look
6:07
Speaker 1: at it. At the end of the day, you might
6:09
Speaker 1: have really just been after a hundred or a thousand,
6:12
Speaker 1: or even ten thousand, or even a hundred thousand dollars
6:14
Speaker 1: worth of damages, which might seem like a lot to you,
6:17
Speaker 1: but might actually be less than the amount that you
6:21
Speaker 1: would spend on that case. And so when you when
6:25
Speaker 1: you face those kind of odds, that kind of challenge,
6:27
Speaker 1: you're just not going to file that suit. Any reasonable
6:31
Speaker 1: reasonable person wouldn't file a lawsuit like that. But the
6:34
Speaker 1: problem is, if that's the case, then that means that
6:37
Speaker 1: giant corporations who are doing ill stuff, um can just
6:43
Speaker 1: keep doing ill stuff, which is a new phrase. I'm
6:46
Speaker 1: working on them taking it out for a walk, right term. Okay, well,
6:51
Speaker 1: then this is an homage to the b Boys. But
6:54
Speaker 1: the the idea that that that if you know, people
6:57
Speaker 1: are just gonna let them get away with it because
6:59
Speaker 1: it's like they can't for the court fees. That's a problem.
7:02
Speaker 1: Which is one of the big things that that is
7:04
Speaker 1: one of the big benefits that class action suits provided.
7:07
Speaker 1: You can take all the separate people, put them together,
7:09
Speaker 1: and now all of a sudden you have a formidable opponent. Yeah,
7:13
Speaker 1: and it's obviously a part of civil law as opposed
7:15
Speaker 1: to criminal law. Um, where I mentioned you have to
7:18
Speaker 1: have some sort of injury. It could be physical, could
7:21
Speaker 1: be emotional, psychological, obviously financial. Uh, And it's what's known
7:26
Speaker 1: as a device and civil litigation, and all that means
7:30
Speaker 1: is sort of that it doesn't really it's sort of
7:33
Speaker 1: the same thing as any other civil case, but it
7:35
Speaker 1: just allows multiple people to take part, and you know,
7:38
Speaker 1: we'll go over all the little minor differences, but it's
7:42
Speaker 1: sort of like treating that big body of people as
7:45
Speaker 1: a single plaintiff, and in fact they do have to
7:48
Speaker 1: even have a representative plaintiff. Like it can't be you know,
7:52
Speaker 1: all Volkswagen owners versus Volkswagen. It would be and of
7:57
Speaker 1: course we'll talk about that real case, but I'm just
8:00
Speaker 1: making this up. It would be Josh Clark versus Volkswagen,
8:02
Speaker 1: and then Josh Clark would have a million angry Germans
8:06
Speaker 1: standing behind him. Do I win in this in this
8:11
Speaker 1: theoretical lawsuit? Tell me what's the shouldn't a big Volkswagen
8:14
Speaker 1: because that was a real case that we'll talk about,
8:16
Speaker 1: but let's say it was, Oh, I don't know, Uh,
8:19
Speaker 1: you go Josh Clark versus you go Okay, yeah, sure,
8:24
Speaker 1: I don't think Hugo was trying to advertise itself as anything,
8:27
Speaker 1: but you goos that was their whole stick, you know,
8:30
Speaker 1: super cheap. You don't see those on the road much anymore,
8:32
Speaker 1: do you. Oh no, I think after just a couple
8:35
Speaker 1: of years you stop seeing those on the road. But yeah,
8:38
Speaker 1: you have a representative plaintiff or a lead plaintiff, and
8:41
Speaker 1: there's is the name that appears on the case. Even
8:44
Speaker 1: though and then we'll learn later to that they in
8:46
Speaker 1: fact also they get a little bump, a little extra
8:49
Speaker 1: money for being the lead plaintiff. Yes, they do get
8:52
Speaker 1: a little because they're the ones who have to go
8:54
Speaker 1: through all this stuff. They might have to show up
8:55
Speaker 1: to court. They're the ones who have to coordinate with
8:57
Speaker 1: the lawyers. They're the ones actually suing. But the thing is,
9:00
Speaker 1: as if you show up and say, I am uh
9:04
Speaker 1: a uh, well, we'll take a We'll take a recent example.
9:09
Speaker 1: I used Johnson. I'm a woman here in this in
9:11
Speaker 1: this situation, i have a vagina and every day, for
9:15
Speaker 1: fifty years I've been using Johnson and Johnson's baby powder
9:19
Speaker 1: on my vaginal region. And as a result, I have
9:23
Speaker 1: ovarian cancer and the doctors have said, yeah, Calcoulm powder
9:27
Speaker 1: is really bad for you. Johnson and Johnson's known as forever,
9:29
Speaker 1: but they just didn't tell anybody. Um, So I want
9:33
Speaker 1: to sue Johnson and Johnson and the legal offices that
9:36
Speaker 1: I walk into and say this too. The first of all,
9:40
Speaker 1: the lawyer is gonna jump up and click as heels
9:41
Speaker 1: and then say I'm very sorry that this is happening
9:43
Speaker 1: to you. But the lawyer will probably think, you know,
9:47
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people who use Johnson's and Johnson
9:50
Speaker 1: and Johnson's baby powder. I wonder if there's anybody else
9:53
Speaker 1: like you. Will start to do research, and all of
9:54
Speaker 1: a sudden, your one lawsuit is going to include a
9:57
Speaker 1: lot more people and will probably become s defy as
10:00
Speaker 1: a class action lawsuit. But you, the person who initially
10:03
Speaker 1: filed this, will remain that representative plain if Yeah, boy,
10:08
Speaker 1: I gotta say that that story had a lot of
10:10
Speaker 1: emotional peaks and valleys. Thank you. I'm doing much better now,
10:14
Speaker 1: by the way. Good. I'm glad the uh and you
10:19
Speaker 1: know it does usually but not always, because there are
10:22
Speaker 1: also cases like in Ron, which we'll talk a little
10:24
Speaker 1: bit about but a lot of times it involves product liability. UM.
10:29
Speaker 1: When bridge Stone Firestone had stuff going on there in
10:34
Speaker 1: the early nineteen nineties and I guess for a decade,
10:38
Speaker 1: the US came down and the judge said, from anyone
10:43
Speaker 1: who had car owned or least one through two thousand
10:47
Speaker 1: one Piotoford explorer during those years, then you are part
10:51
Speaker 1: of this class. They call that the class, and then
10:55
Speaker 1: uh the attorney who represents that class, and we'll talk
10:58
Speaker 1: about how they get selected. They are many times referred
11:02
Speaker 1: to as class council, which sounds very much like some
11:05
Speaker 1: middle school title that you would run for or something.
11:09
Speaker 1: But whenever we say class council, just think that's the
11:11
Speaker 1: attorney representing all these people, right class. Yeah, so you
11:17
Speaker 1: want to take a break and then talk a little
11:19
Speaker 1: bit about the history of this stuff. Yeah, let's do it. Okay, stop,
11:38
Speaker 1: you know, stop stop? Shouldn't you know? You stop? You know?
11:47
Speaker 1: Stop stop? Shouldn't you know? So? Chucky said that class
11:54
Speaker 1: action lawsuits are are a type of civil law right
11:57
Speaker 1: which is not criminal law. But even more specifically than that, UM,
12:01
Speaker 1: because they're a part of civil law, they're actually based
12:03
Speaker 1: on common law, which is the legal body that's been
12:08
Speaker 1: formed over the centuries, starting in England and even further
12:12
Speaker 1: back than that. It turns out the Vikings are really
12:14
Speaker 1: the first court that was ever set up in Europe.
12:19
Speaker 1: Um that they actually started a lot of the legal
12:21
Speaker 1: precedent that made its way over to England, that in
12:24
Speaker 1: turn made its way over to America. So helmet tip
12:28
Speaker 1: to the Vikings for all that. But um, the common
12:32
Speaker 1: law is like the sum of all the judicial decisions
12:37
Speaker 1: made over those centuries that set precedent, that was built
12:41
Speaker 1: on and expanded on and refined. That's common law, and
12:44
Speaker 1: common law um is the basis of originally of hearing
12:50
Speaker 1: um these kinds of cases which are class action lawsuits. Yeah,
12:55
Speaker 1: and these they didn't call them class action suits in eleven,
13:00
Speaker 1: but they had them. And it wasn't, you know, thousands
13:03
Speaker 1: of people against a tire company. It was a few people.
13:06
Speaker 1: But uh, in England they allowed a handful of people
13:09
Speaker 1: to get together occasionally in the in the village. And
13:13
Speaker 1: you know, maybe I'm not sure. I didn't really find
13:16
Speaker 1: why exactly they did this. Initially, My guests would just
13:20
Speaker 1: be efficiency of the court maybe early on um, which
13:25
Speaker 1: is sort of how it still is in a lot
13:27
Speaker 1: of ways. Rather than trying thousands of cases or even
13:31
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of cases, you can just get everyone
13:34
Speaker 1: together in one room, and that's what they did in England.
13:36
Speaker 1: They allowed a few people to file a single complaint
13:39
Speaker 1: against the court. And this kind of carried over over
13:42
Speaker 1: the years, eventually into Colonial America, along with some other
13:46
Speaker 1: stuff dealing with law. Like like you said, a lot
13:50
Speaker 1: of it sort of some didn't stick, some did, Yeah, no.
13:53
Speaker 1: And there's like a period apparently from about the middle
13:57
Speaker 1: of the UM I guess about the off teen hundreds
14:00
Speaker 1: and the fourteen hundreds to the middle of the nineteenth
14:02
Speaker 1: century where this just kind of went away in England,
14:06
Speaker 1: but it persisted in Colonial America UM and then carried
14:10
Speaker 1: on and then went back to England, UH and found
14:13
Speaker 1: purchase in about the middle of the nineteenth century in
14:16
Speaker 1: England's equity courts, which is a specific kind of court.
14:20
Speaker 1: It's now part of regular civil court now, but for
14:23
Speaker 1: a little while it was its own thing where if say, like, um,
14:27
Speaker 1: you hired a tin smith to make a gravy boat
14:30
Speaker 1: for you in like seventeen fifty eight, UM, you you
14:35
Speaker 1: would take that guy to civil court if he if
14:38
Speaker 1: he gave you one that was like, you know, only
14:40
Speaker 1: half of a gravy boat. You couldn't hold gravy in it.
14:43
Speaker 1: So what are you gonna do with this thing? Um,
14:46
Speaker 1: it's totally useless. So you take the tin smith to court, Well,
14:49
Speaker 1: you would probably expect money for damages, the money that
14:53
Speaker 1: you gave him return to you. Civil court would handle that.
14:57
Speaker 1: If you wanted to say, make the tin smith finish
15:00
Speaker 1: the job, to complete this this gravy boat, then you
15:04
Speaker 1: would probably take him to equity court. Equity court was
15:07
Speaker 1: court that had to do with everything except monetary damages
15:10
Speaker 1: or criminal court. It was the creative kind of court
15:14
Speaker 1: where it really kind of called on to judge's um,
15:17
Speaker 1: fairness and imagination to solve whatever problem was brought before it.
15:22
Speaker 1: And this these equity courts, like we said, like I said, um,
15:27
Speaker 1: we're we're eventually fused into regular civil court. But they
15:31
Speaker 1: are where our understanding, like the modern understanding of class
15:35
Speaker 1: action lawsuits were born. I get some of the eighteenth
15:38
Speaker 1: century gravy man. I love gravy. I don't care what
15:42
Speaker 1: century is from. It's a good band name too. So
15:45
Speaker 1: the problem with equity courts, even early on is that
15:49
Speaker 1: there was really no um kind of codified procedure for everything,
15:54
Speaker 1: especially as these cases got bigger and bigger. Uh, as
15:57
Speaker 1: far as people grouping up, there was no standard procedure.
16:01
Speaker 1: And one of the biggest challenges with that, our guess
16:04
Speaker 1: biggest controversies was whether or not people that weren't a
16:10
Speaker 1: part of that case technically, um, but we're still a
16:14
Speaker 1: part of it because they had the wagon wheel made
16:16
Speaker 1: by the the local town smith that was faulty, whether
16:19
Speaker 1: or not they signed up or not for that case,
16:22
Speaker 1: whether they were bound by that decision. And it's a
16:26
Speaker 1: little counter intoive to think about that, like who cares
16:30
Speaker 1: if if Goody Smith isn't a part of this case,
16:34
Speaker 1: maybe he doesn't care that his wagon wheel is faulty
16:37
Speaker 1: or not. But what this does, if you look at
16:40
Speaker 1: it on the other side, is Goody Smith can't like,
16:43
Speaker 1: once they settle this thing, Goody Smith can't come along
16:46
Speaker 1: and then say, well, I want to see you separately.
16:49
Speaker 1: So then Goody Smith couldn't come come around later, or
16:52
Speaker 1: I guess until they changed it, he could come around
16:54
Speaker 1: later and sue again. But they had to work all
16:56
Speaker 1: this out. They were like, that's not fair. You can't
16:58
Speaker 1: have this big civil case, have someone technically be a
17:01
Speaker 1: part of it but not assigned to it, and then
17:03
Speaker 1: later on try and get their own separate damages. Right So,
17:08
Speaker 1: but but I mean that's I think how it was
17:10
Speaker 1: for a good almost a century, a little over a century,
17:14
Speaker 1: where you could say, like, I didn't have anything to
17:17
Speaker 1: do with this thing. Goody by the way, short for
17:19
Speaker 1: good wife. So it's like Mrs Smith, well, I was
17:22
Speaker 1: just kidding around anyway. So um yeah, but like the
17:26
Speaker 1: the the ninth grade crucible reader in me could not
17:29
Speaker 1: just let that pass. Remember that play? I do? I
17:33
Speaker 1: love it? Um. So the thing is like for a
17:37
Speaker 1: good century, like if you if even if you were
17:40
Speaker 1: considered somebody who would be a member of that class,
17:43
Speaker 1: if you hadn't signed onto this lawsuit, you could come
17:45
Speaker 1: back around and say I didn't have anything to do
17:48
Speaker 1: with that, like I want to sue you myself. And
17:51
Speaker 1: that did kind of make things unwieldy because one of
17:55
Speaker 1: the purposes nowadays for filing a class action lawsuit, at
17:59
Speaker 1: least as are as like the defendant, like say the
18:01
Speaker 1: big corporation is concerned, is to just settle this once
18:04
Speaker 1: and for all, and so Eventually they came up with
18:07
Speaker 1: something called Rule forty eight, which UM started to kind
18:11
Speaker 1: of um include. It was like the birth of the
18:15
Speaker 1: rules for class action lawsuits UM and Rule forty eight
18:20
Speaker 1: morphed into Rule twenty three, Rule twenty three. Eventually nineteen
18:25
Speaker 1: sixty six said you know what, We're just going to
18:27
Speaker 1: say this, if you qualify as a member of a
18:30
Speaker 1: class action class, even if you have nothing to do
18:34
Speaker 1: with this, if you don't sign on, you're considered bound
18:38
Speaker 1: to the decision, which means if you, if like the
18:42
Speaker 1: people suing these people lose, you can't go back and
18:46
Speaker 1: and sue them again and try yourself. You're bound by
18:48
Speaker 1: that decision. And in nineteen sixty six they said, well,
18:52
Speaker 1: how are we going to do this? And they said, well,
18:54
Speaker 1: we need to just notify people, give people the option
18:57
Speaker 1: to say I don't want to have anything to do
18:58
Speaker 1: with the suit because I do want to see these
19:00
Speaker 1: people on my own. And as long as you've give
19:02
Speaker 1: them that option, the whole thing seemed pretty fair. Yeah.
19:06
Speaker 1: Ninety seven was when the Supreme Court first adopted these
19:10
Speaker 1: rules of civil procedure and the beginnings of Rule twenty three.
19:15
Speaker 1: And this is when they sort of just dissolved a
19:16
Speaker 1: lot of the separation between the law courts and equity courts.
19:20
Speaker 1: But it was until sixty six that they finally realized
19:23
Speaker 1: that was an issue. And they also, I mean, it's
19:25
Speaker 1: a pretty um, it's a pretty dense thing Rule twenty three.
19:29
Speaker 1: That was a lot that went on, and then that
19:31
Speaker 1: was admitted again in two thousand five with the Class
19:34
Speaker 1: Action Fairness Act, which among other things, said that, um,
19:38
Speaker 1: you know, if it's over five million bucks, then this
19:41
Speaker 1: has gotta go to federal court, federal district court because
19:45
Speaker 1: that's too much money. Um. Another one of the things
19:48
Speaker 1: from the Fairness Act of two thousand five is it
19:51
Speaker 1: laid out some other criteria aside from the five million bucks. Um.
19:55
Speaker 1: It said that any case involving planeiffs or of defendants
19:58
Speaker 1: from like a bunch of ferent states. So if it's
20:00
Speaker 1: like all across the country basically, and they call that
20:03
Speaker 1: diversity jurisdiction, then the federal court can actually, uh, it
20:08
Speaker 1: has to go to federal court under that case, right.
20:11
Speaker 1: And then also if it's a hundred people are over it,
20:14
Speaker 1: typically a hundred hundred plaintiffs are over it typically goes
20:19
Speaker 1: to federal court. And I get the impression federal courts
20:23
Speaker 1: is basically like, we're a little more equipped for this,
20:26
Speaker 1: this the complexities and intricacies of a class action lawsuit.
20:31
Speaker 1: That's the impression I have to you. Yeah, I mean,
20:34
Speaker 1: I think they're just set up for it. Um. I
20:38
Speaker 1: imagine it would be tough for a state court to
20:40
Speaker 1: handle a case like Firestone Bridge Stone with that many
20:45
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of people, maybe even millions. I don't
20:47
Speaker 1: know how many eventual plaintiffs there were, but that's a
20:49
Speaker 1: lot of tires. So I think that's true. But I
20:53
Speaker 1: also feel like this whole thing smacks of federal courts
20:56
Speaker 1: just basically being like, you know, let's just admit it.
20:59
Speaker 1: That's state courts are run by hay seeds and yokels.
21:04
Speaker 1: That's what it smells like to me. There's definitely the
21:06
Speaker 1: undercurrent rules state court rules, that's right. So, um that
21:14
Speaker 1: Rule twenty three, which again is very dense, as you said,
21:17
Speaker 1: but it's also ominous sounding if you ask me, Rule
21:20
Speaker 1: twenty three sounds like it's gonna mess you up pretty good. Um.
21:24
Speaker 1: But it's basically the body of understanding for class action
21:29
Speaker 1: lawsuits that's been established, you know, since the thirties up
21:33
Speaker 1: to two thousand five with the Class Action Fairness Act,
21:35
Speaker 1: like you were saying, and if you read it, you
21:37
Speaker 1: can basically get a pretty good idea of what has
21:40
Speaker 1: to happen for a class action lawsuit to go forward. Um.
21:44
Speaker 1: Apparently each state has its own rules, but as far
21:47
Speaker 1: as the federal districts are concerned, UM rule twenty three
21:51
Speaker 1: is is it? And the first thing you have to
21:54
Speaker 1: do is you have to become certified as a class
21:57
Speaker 1: like your your lawsuit has to go from it's is
22:00
Speaker 1: me suing you know, um, Exxon for the oil spill. Two.
22:06
Speaker 1: I've got all these other neighbors and cannary owners around
22:10
Speaker 1: here who are all affected by this oil spill. Um,
22:13
Speaker 1: and we think we we have a good case against Exxon.
22:17
Speaker 1: And very importantly, we all have the same kind of harm.
22:21
Speaker 1: We have a common complaint, which is Exon spilled a
22:24
Speaker 1: bunch of oil, messed up our livelihood and our lives um.
22:28
Speaker 1: And we all you know, because we all have the
22:30
Speaker 1: same kind of case. The defense Exxon could mount the
22:34
Speaker 1: same defense against all of these complaints, so we would
22:38
Speaker 1: probably be certified as as a class. Yeah, Like you know,
22:43
Speaker 1: the common defense in the case of like Aaron Brockovich
22:45
Speaker 1: that movie. I can't remember the name of the company
22:48
Speaker 1: that was a defendant, but who wasn't Pacific Gas and Electricity,
22:53
Speaker 1: the one who keeps setting off wildfires out in California.
22:57
Speaker 1: So they couldn't then have a defense. Um, one defense
23:00
Speaker 1: against like a certain number of people and are certain
23:03
Speaker 1: kind of person in town, Let's say it's probably more applicable,
23:07
Speaker 1: and then another for another kind of person in town.
23:10
Speaker 1: They had to mount a common defense. It's basically, I
23:13
Speaker 1: think all about equity, are making things equitable among kind
23:18
Speaker 1: of for both sides. Yeah, which I thought was pretty interesting. Um,
23:22
Speaker 1: and only you know, you have to get certified, and
23:25
Speaker 1: only of lawsuits that are filed a class action even
23:29
Speaker 1: get certification to begin with. Yeah, and the reason that
23:33
Speaker 1: was lower than I thought, but I guess it also
23:35
Speaker 1: makes sense. Um. What I could not find is this, Chuck,
23:38
Speaker 1: what happens to the original lawsuit, the original plaintiff if
23:44
Speaker 1: they're not certified as a class there as a class
23:47
Speaker 1: action lawsuit, but you can probably just go sue on
23:50
Speaker 1: your own. And I don't know, I cannot find out
23:53
Speaker 1: the way that I couldn't find out was the case
23:56
Speaker 1: that first piqued my interest about that was UM Duke's
24:00
Speaker 1: versus Walmart. I think it was Dukes that all were
24:03
Speaker 1: versus Walmart, which turned out to be the biggest class
24:08
Speaker 1: action class ever created. It consisted of one and a
24:12
Speaker 1: half million women who had been employed. It's bigger than
24:17
Speaker 1: the US military, by the way, but they were every
24:20
Speaker 1: woman who was employed by Walmart UM between I think
24:25
Speaker 1: uh nine any time after UM and the whole the
24:30
Speaker 1: whole lawsuit was that Walmart was basically promoting men more
24:34
Speaker 1: quickly and giving men more resources to advance into management
24:38
Speaker 1: positions than women. And the idea was that if you
24:42
Speaker 1: were a woman, you were harmed by this, uh equally.
24:46
Speaker 1: So it made sense that that that this would get
24:48
Speaker 1: certified as a class action suit because any woman who
24:51
Speaker 1: worked for Walmart would have been harmed by not having
24:54
Speaker 1: the opportunity to advance. But then Walmart argued and said, well,
24:58
Speaker 1: you know there's no national or company wide policy that
25:03
Speaker 1: says you can't advance women, you can advance men more quickly.
25:07
Speaker 1: That all of these advancement decisions are made up of
25:10
Speaker 1: thousands and thousands of local decisions. So since there were
25:14
Speaker 1: so many different decisions that affected all these different women.
25:17
Speaker 1: This class doesn't make sense. And they actually went went
25:20
Speaker 1: all the ways Supreme Court and Supreme courts at Walmart's right.
25:23
Speaker 1: This is this doesn't make sense as a class action
25:26
Speaker 1: suit because all of the harms could have been for
25:28
Speaker 1: different reasons, carried up at different people. Um. But the
25:32
Speaker 1: reason that does make sense to have that that certification
25:36
Speaker 1: clause is because any defendant has a right to defend
25:39
Speaker 1: themselves against any accusation in court. And so if everybody's
25:44
Speaker 1: accusing them of the same harm, then it makes sense
25:47
Speaker 1: of certifying them together as a class. If there's different
25:50
Speaker 1: harms that aren't quite the same, then the defendant should
25:53
Speaker 1: be able to defend against that that accusation, that accusation,
25:57
Speaker 1: that accusation, and you shouldn't lump all those people together
26:00
Speaker 1: into a whole class. Right. So the judges in charge
26:03
Speaker 1: of defining the class. Uh, And like we said, it's
26:06
Speaker 1: gotta you know, it's gotta be specific to the problem. Uh.
26:11
Speaker 1: At hand, it can't be all Bridgetone tire owners it was,
26:15
Speaker 1: unless it's all bridge Stone tires. But it's it turned
26:18
Speaker 1: out it was just this one tire on this one car.
26:21
Speaker 1: And so you have to really define that like if
26:23
Speaker 1: you have this car during these years, Uh, then you
26:26
Speaker 1: are part of this class. And um, from that point
26:29
Speaker 1: it has the notification that we talked about has to
26:32
Speaker 1: take place. Whether it's you know, you've seen TV commercials
26:36
Speaker 1: probably to have this kind of thing. Uh, you see
26:39
Speaker 1: advertisements in the newspaper, you probably get a mailer. It
26:43
Speaker 1: depends on how broad it is. Um, they're not gonna
26:47
Speaker 1: do a TV commercial if they don't need to, because
26:49
Speaker 1: that costs money obviously, uh. And that's an expense. But
26:52
Speaker 1: they're gonna notify everyone, uh, pretty in pretty quick order
26:57
Speaker 1: because what they want is for every do you know
27:00
Speaker 1: they were a part of this class, that's a part
27:01
Speaker 1: of that class, and whether or not you want to
27:03
Speaker 1: opt in or out. Uh. And if you opt out
27:07
Speaker 1: and you are within the scope of that class, you
27:09
Speaker 1: can you can do so if you want to. If
27:12
Speaker 1: it's I'm not sure why anyone for these like kind
27:15
Speaker 1: of small things that seemed to happen a lot, would
27:18
Speaker 1: opt out. Uh. I think they probably just count on
27:22
Speaker 1: people ignoring that kind of thing their check for five
27:26
Speaker 1: dollars in the mail, but doing anything, Yeah, you can't
27:30
Speaker 1: opt out if you're I don't know if you're a
27:33
Speaker 1: person who's just like I don't want my name on
27:34
Speaker 1: any list, and I don't want to be a part
27:36
Speaker 1: of any you know, if you're kind of a uh,
27:38
Speaker 1: paranoid type as far as the government and court cases go,
27:41
Speaker 1: you may want to opt out just to not be
27:43
Speaker 1: a part of something so small. Well, the I think
27:47
Speaker 1: the reason that they included is because if you are
27:50
Speaker 1: some Let's say you are somebody who um whose house
27:55
Speaker 1: was washed away by the oil spill at the of
27:59
Speaker 1: the X on L D s UM. But the class
28:02
Speaker 1: action lawsuit was everyone who was affected by the oil,
28:05
Speaker 1: so it would include people whose houses lived or whose
28:08
Speaker 1: houses were a mile away, whose front yards got covered
28:12
Speaker 1: in oil. Well, you'd be like, wait a minute, whatever
28:15
Speaker 1: they're gonna get is nothing like what I need the
28:17
Speaker 1: damages that I'm seeking, So I'm gonna opt out. Um
28:21
Speaker 1: And because they can't yeah, and because there's tons of
28:24
Speaker 1: real reasons to opt out. The five dollar check coming
28:28
Speaker 1: from the credit card company. Sure, but I'm saying like
28:30
Speaker 1: they can't differentiate who's who's getting that mailer from who's not,
28:35
Speaker 1: which is why they put the onus on the person
28:37
Speaker 1: getting that mailer. Seeing that TV commercial to say, oh,
28:39
Speaker 1: I need to opt out because I need to sue
28:42
Speaker 1: them on my own. I can't be part of this
28:44
Speaker 1: class because when that settlement is reached and they say
28:47
Speaker 1: everybody's gonna get five dollars for the for the trouble. Um,
28:51
Speaker 1: that's what you got for your house being washed away,
28:53
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Yeah, So then the judge
28:57
Speaker 1: is actually gonna appoint the council, which is different than
29:00
Speaker 1: how it usually works. The judge is going to look
29:03
Speaker 1: at this and say, um, and this is for uh,
29:07
Speaker 1: I think for defense only, right. I guess the judge
29:10
Speaker 1: can change the plaintiff, but it's typically the lawyer who
29:13
Speaker 1: actually files the case. I think it's unusual for the
29:15
Speaker 1: judge to overrule that unless it's someone who just doesn't
29:19
Speaker 1: have the responsibility or maybe that kind of background. Sure, yeah,
29:24
Speaker 1: I mean I think like, if um, somebody walked in
29:27
Speaker 1: with the Johnson and Johnson complaint in the you know,
29:30
Speaker 1: the lawyer was just like a local ambulance chaser, they
29:34
Speaker 1: probably would get replaced with like a larger national firm
29:37
Speaker 1: that had the resources or the understanding, that had like
29:40
Speaker 1: contexts and like the um um uh professional um witness field.
29:46
Speaker 1: As far as like medic medicine and cancer is concerned,
29:49
Speaker 1: Like that guy just wouldn't have the resources, so he
29:52
Speaker 1: might be changed. But yeah, I'm guessing it's probably rare.
29:56
Speaker 1: Um But the point is that the judge has the
29:59
Speaker 1: ability to who decide who is the lawyer for the
30:03
Speaker 1: plaintiffs in the class action. Yeah, I think it's probably
30:07
Speaker 1: more rare because lawyers understand this and they probably wouldn't
30:12
Speaker 1: file if they knew that they would be replaced, unless
30:15
Speaker 1: it's just to get it going and they know they're
30:17
Speaker 1: going to be replaced, Like and what was the breaking
30:19
Speaker 1: bad's been a better call Saul? When they I think
30:23
Speaker 1: in like season two or something, when they figure out
30:25
Speaker 1: that the nursing home is taking advantage of the seniors
30:28
Speaker 1: overcharging them. Like the first thing that Saul Saul did
30:33
Speaker 1: was go to the larger firm and say, like, we
30:36
Speaker 1: need to partner up because he knew he couldn't handle
30:39
Speaker 1: it himself. That's what I'm guessing happens. Yeah, and then, uh,
30:43
Speaker 1: I didn't see better call Saul, But that sounds right
30:45
Speaker 1: to me. Oh you didn't. It's not pretty good. It's
30:48
Speaker 1: not breaking bad, but it doesn't seek to be breaking bad.
30:51
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. Yeah, I've heard a lot
30:52
Speaker 1: of people said, like it better, but I could see
30:55
Speaker 1: that it's a difference. Um. And then eventually the judge
30:58
Speaker 1: and again you know if you haven't noticed, and it's
31:01
Speaker 1: sort of like in the early days, the judge has
31:04
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot more say in class action
31:07
Speaker 1: cases than a lot of other kinds of cases, really
31:10
Speaker 1: making a lot of decisions that they don't get to
31:12
Speaker 1: decide in other kinds of cases. In this case, one
31:15
Speaker 1: of the final things they get to decide is the
31:17
Speaker 1: distribution of damages. And they you know, they use other
31:21
Speaker 1: people for insight, They develop a plan with people on
31:24
Speaker 1: their team, but they developed this plan to distribute whatever
31:28
Speaker 1: monetary damages, if it's you know, three billion dollars, they're
31:32
Speaker 1: going to figure out how to approve that settlement and
31:35
Speaker 1: how to distribute that settlement, including this is a very
31:38
Speaker 1: key thing, as we'll see later, including how much those
31:42
Speaker 1: attorneys are going to get paid. Right. Um, So you
31:45
Speaker 1: want to take a break and then come back and
31:46
Speaker 1: talk about some of the advantages and disadvantages of class
31:50
Speaker 1: action suits. Yeah, let's do it. Yah, Stop you know stopping?
32:12
Speaker 1: Shouldn't you know? Stop? You know? Stopping, shouldn't you know? So?
32:23
Speaker 1: One of the big advantages obviously something we already mentioned, um,
32:26
Speaker 1: a lot of people. There's power in numbers. A lot
32:29
Speaker 1: of people is more significant than one person, and a
32:33
Speaker 1: lot of people pulling their resources is more significant. Lawsuits
32:38
Speaker 1: cost a lot of money and in many, many cases,
32:42
Speaker 1: it is not worth it for someone to go after
32:45
Speaker 1: a company for you know, you kind of just have
32:48
Speaker 1: to do the math, like how much is this gonna
32:49
Speaker 1: cost me, what's the potential payout? Is it worth the risk?
32:53
Speaker 1: Whereas if you can band together with a bunch of
32:54
Speaker 1: other people, it's a huge, huge advantage, right. One of
32:58
Speaker 1: the other advantages is um the more people you have,
33:01
Speaker 1: the more damages are going to be awarded if the
33:04
Speaker 1: planeiffs win, which means you're going to start attracting increasingly
33:08
Speaker 1: higher caliber lawyers to your cause who could be your
33:13
Speaker 1: your class counsel. And the reason why is because in
33:16
Speaker 1: cases where you're seeking damages, lawyers often don't get paid
33:20
Speaker 1: unless they win. But if you win, then the lawyers
33:23
Speaker 1: get a big fat pay day out of it. So
33:25
Speaker 1: the bigger the class, the better the law firm um
33:28
Speaker 1: or legal team representing that class is probably going to
33:32
Speaker 1: be at least more experienced, you know, yeah, for sure.
33:37
Speaker 1: Another huge advantage is is that you're going to get
33:40
Speaker 1: your case hurt. If individual cases, they go first come,
33:44
Speaker 1: first serve. So if an individual brings a big lawsuit
33:49
Speaker 1: and they win, that company might be out of business
33:52
Speaker 1: before you can even get your suit going. And if
33:54
Speaker 1: you're part of a class action lawsuit, it's going to
33:57
Speaker 1: make sure that everybody gets there p to the pie
34:00
Speaker 1: basically exactly. So, Um, there's a lot of reasons to
34:05
Speaker 1: do this. Another another one too, is it makes sense
34:07
Speaker 1: for um corporations. They have an incentive to try to
34:11
Speaker 1: settle fairly with a class action suit because it will
34:16
Speaker 1: handle it will make this big years long, sometimes decade
34:20
Speaker 1: long problems um go away finally, once and for all. Yeah.
34:25
Speaker 1: And you know, there's a lot of press that comes
34:27
Speaker 1: along with a class action suit. Yeah, far more pressed
34:30
Speaker 1: than than an individual case. So it definitely behooves the
34:35
Speaker 1: defense to try and get these things wrapped up quickly
34:37
Speaker 1: because it's just bad news for them. Yeah. And on
34:40
Speaker 1: the same on the other side of that same coin, Chuck,
34:43
Speaker 1: like that large amount of press that gets generated by
34:46
Speaker 1: these big, big cases also kind of keeps corporate mouth
34:50
Speaker 1: feasans in line, you know, makes the company. It probably
34:55
Speaker 1: does more than if we didn't have such things as
34:57
Speaker 1: class action suits. But that's one of the theoret go
35:00
Speaker 1: buy products about that. Yeah, I got some property to you.
35:06
Speaker 1: Is it called the Brooklyn Bridge. It's wonderful. So. Um,
35:10
Speaker 1: there are some problems with class action suits. They're not
35:13
Speaker 1: the candy land that we've described them as entirely. Um. Instead,
35:18
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of um frivolous class action suits
35:22
Speaker 1: that have been filed over the years, um by lawyers
35:25
Speaker 1: who are looking to make a fast buck, in part
35:28
Speaker 1: using that bad press as a threat, like do you
35:32
Speaker 1: really want this to be you know, to get dragged
35:34
Speaker 1: out in court, Just go ahead and settle, and you know,
35:38
Speaker 1: I'm the lawyer. I'll take my big fat cut. Um.
35:40
Speaker 1: And that's a that's a big problem actually, and that's
35:43
Speaker 1: a big perceived problem too, that class uh class council
35:47
Speaker 1: walk away, you know, whistling and laughing all the way
35:50
Speaker 1: to the bank, while the individual members are just getting
35:53
Speaker 1: five bucks for their their problems, even though they're the
35:56
Speaker 1: ones who had the thing befall them in the first place. Yeah. Um.
36:00
Speaker 1: And also, you know, if you choose. Like, let's use
36:02
Speaker 1: that exon example. If you get bad legal advice in
36:07
Speaker 1: your house was destroyed more than other people's property, and
36:11
Speaker 1: you don't opt out, you can't then say, oh, well,
36:15
Speaker 1: you know I only got this much. My whole house
36:18
Speaker 1: was destroyed. I really want to bring a lawsuit again.
36:21
Speaker 1: You can't do that unless you opt out. So that
36:24
Speaker 1: is a disadvantage that you that's sort of your one
36:27
Speaker 1: shot basically at any compensation. Yeah, I think the rule
36:30
Speaker 1: of thumb is if you didn't even know that this
36:33
Speaker 1: wrong had befallen you, it's probably not that big of
36:37
Speaker 1: a deal, and you're not gonna want to opt out
36:39
Speaker 1: because then that means you have to hire your own
36:42
Speaker 1: lawyer and go through the trouble of suing somebody, which
36:45
Speaker 1: is never pleasant or fun. Um. So, like I was saying,
36:49
Speaker 1: like those those class lawyers are a favorite target of
36:52
Speaker 1: tort reformists and critics because, um, the the if the
36:58
Speaker 1: plainiffs win and the judge rules in the plane of favor,
37:01
Speaker 1: one of the things that judge will do is figure
37:03
Speaker 1: out what the compensation is for the lawyer. Uh is
37:06
Speaker 1: going to be a lot of times that comes out
37:08
Speaker 1: of the settlement right, Like, if everybody gets ten billion dollars,
37:13
Speaker 1: the judge will say, well, you attorney who led this
37:16
Speaker 1: case in your law firm and your legal team, you're
37:18
Speaker 1: gonna get this fee. And I was reading up on it,
37:21
Speaker 1: and it sounds like it's fairly arbitrary. There's no good
37:24
Speaker 1: rule of thumb. And in fact, lawyers who represent class actions,
37:30
Speaker 1: um may actually get a lower percentage fee than they
37:34
Speaker 1: would if they were representing somebody on an individual basis.
37:39
Speaker 1: But the thing is, these payouts can be so huge
37:42
Speaker 1: that even if it's a really small percentage, it's going
37:44
Speaker 1: to be just this incredibly large amount in real numbers.
37:49
Speaker 1: And so a lot of people are like that, I
37:50
Speaker 1: didn't earn that. They didn't they didn't deserve that, especially
37:53
Speaker 1: when they find out that, you know, a million people
37:55
Speaker 1: got a coupon for half of a free tire from
37:59
Speaker 1: Firestone for having deadly tires on their car for ten years. Yeah,
38:04
Speaker 1: those are and they you know, they tried to um,
38:08
Speaker 1: they tried to rectify that in part of the the
38:11
Speaker 1: c a f A. The Class Action Fairness Active two
38:13
Speaker 1: thousand five. With these coupon settlements, those really rubbed me
38:17
Speaker 1: the wrong way. Um. It wasn't a class action suit,
38:20
Speaker 1: but there was something involved. At one point, I was
38:23
Speaker 1: a season ticket holder for the Atlanta Falcons and I
38:26
Speaker 1: can't remember what the deal was. Now, it wasn't a
38:29
Speaker 1: class action suit, but there was something to where they
38:32
Speaker 1: wronged the season ticket holders in some financial way. Terrible playing. Yeah,
38:38
Speaker 1: we should have brought the class action suit for the
38:40
Speaker 1: past thirty five years. Those North Georgia people would join it,
38:44
Speaker 1: yeah exactly, but they um, they did that coupon thing,
38:48
Speaker 1: and they were like, well, because of whatever it was,
38:51
Speaker 1: this upcoming season, you'll season ticket holders will get off
38:55
Speaker 1: anything from the Falcons merch store. And that just really me.
39:00
Speaker 1: It's like because they're just you're spending more like the
39:03
Speaker 1: people that fall for that, or just giving them even
39:06
Speaker 1: more money. That's a big criticism is that it and
39:09
Speaker 1: it it establishes or keeps established an ongoing uh commercial
39:15
Speaker 1: relationship between the person who wronged you and you the
39:18
Speaker 1: person suing them. Uh. And that is a big criticism.
39:21
Speaker 1: Some people say a good A good reply to that
39:24
Speaker 1: is just have cash settlements or UM. You could have
39:28
Speaker 1: a whole product settlement like UM, rather than you having
39:33
Speaker 1: a coupon for some percentage off, so you still have
39:35
Speaker 1: to give them money. They say, we'll give you the
39:37
Speaker 1: jersey of your choice, free and clear, and you never
39:39
Speaker 1: have to see us again, or maybe even like from
39:42
Speaker 1: the NFL dot com stort, it doesn't even have to
39:44
Speaker 1: be like a foul a falcon's jersey. That's a solution
39:46
Speaker 1: to that too. But one of the big problems was
39:50
Speaker 1: lawyers who were representing these coupon cases. Um, they were
39:55
Speaker 1: taking a percentage of the entire value of the ponds, right,
40:02
Speaker 1: And so what Kafa in two thousand five or six
40:05
Speaker 1: sought to change was saying, like, you really shouldn't do
40:08
Speaker 1: that because a lot of people don't actually redeem that.
40:10
Speaker 1: So you shouldn't get a percentage of the people's coupons
40:13
Speaker 1: who are never going to redeem that coupon. You should
40:16
Speaker 1: get a portion of the coupons that are going to
40:19
Speaker 1: be redeemed. And that is just as hard. Figuring out
40:24
Speaker 1: how many coupons are going to be redeemed is as
40:26
Speaker 1: hard as it sounds from what I understand. Yeah, and
40:29
Speaker 1: this there's one case in two thousand thirteen that you
40:31
Speaker 1: sent over that was pretty interesting. There was a teenager.
40:36
Speaker 1: His name was that guy who measured his subway sandwich
40:40
Speaker 1: his foot long. We he was Australian, so say it
40:43
Speaker 1: in Australian. He was that guy. Uh, And he measured
40:47
Speaker 1: his foot long and it was only eleven inches long,
40:50
Speaker 1: and he took it to attorney Jackie Childs, and then
40:55
Speaker 1: Jackie Childs didn't take the case, and so the kid
40:57
Speaker 1: went away. And then another kid measured his sandwich and
41:01
Speaker 1: his name was well actually, and he actually got this
41:05
Speaker 1: thing taken to court because he didn't have a twelve
41:08
Speaker 1: inch sub on his from his subway sandwich. It it
41:11
Speaker 1: baked up a little bit short, yes, and that was
41:16
Speaker 1: an actual case. Of course, I'm getting around about those names.
41:18
Speaker 1: But um, although I wish I wasn't. Uh, the attorneys there,
41:24
Speaker 1: we're gonna get over a half a million dollars in
41:26
Speaker 1: fees for what ended up being no pay out whatsoever,
41:31
Speaker 1: just Subway saying we'll we'll make these things bake up
41:34
Speaker 1: to twelve inches. Now, well, Subway even said we can't
41:37
Speaker 1: guarantee that we cannot. They're like bread doesn't bake in
41:41
Speaker 1: exactly the same way. It's just that's not how it works.
41:44
Speaker 1: And the court eve intended to agree with that. But
41:46
Speaker 1: the point was no one was going to get anything,
41:49
Speaker 1: not even like a six inch sub nothing a free inch. Yeah,
41:54
Speaker 1: not even a free inch. You're just going to get
41:56
Speaker 1: you know, Subway will stay in business. But these lawyers
41:58
Speaker 1: were going to get a half a million dollars and
42:00
Speaker 1: the judges like, you know, I forget this, We're just
42:02
Speaker 1: gonna dismiss this entire case. That's right. Jackie Childs was
42:06
Speaker 1: very disappointed. There was also a similar um a similar
42:10
Speaker 1: one when when the Center for Science and the Public
42:13
Speaker 1: interests hire some lawyers to sue Coca Cola, who owned
42:16
Speaker 1: Vitamin Water at the time. Envitamin Water used to have
42:18
Speaker 1: this hilarious ad campaign where it promised all these ridiculous
42:21
Speaker 1: health benefits that any reasonable person knew were not true,
42:26
Speaker 1: and they were suing for that. They were actually suing
42:29
Speaker 1: because vitamin water didn't disclose how much sugar it had
42:33
Speaker 1: in it um. Even though it was ridiculous health claims,
42:37
Speaker 1: it was still kind of purporting to be healthy, and
42:40
Speaker 1: these the Center for the Science and the Public Interest
42:43
Speaker 1: was like, this is not healthy at all, and so
42:45
Speaker 1: they sued. Coca Cola didn't do anything but stopped I
42:49
Speaker 1: think advertising the way that they were. But those lawyers
42:52
Speaker 1: still got two point seven three million dollars in fees,
42:54
Speaker 1: even though no one else got anything of sugar and
42:59
Speaker 1: vitamin water. Yeah, I believe crazy tastes delicious. I don't.
43:03
Speaker 1: I don't. I didn't know it head sugar in it.
43:05
Speaker 1: That's I'm offended. That's why they got sued. Uh. And
43:09
Speaker 1: you know, there have been some very famous civil class
43:13
Speaker 1: action suits over the years. The largest ever obviously where
43:17
Speaker 1: the tobacco settlements, and that was by tenfold next to
43:22
Speaker 1: the second highest one, tobacco settlements. And I don't think
43:26
Speaker 1: it's over yet even UM two hundred and six billion
43:28
Speaker 1: dollars so far from that decision. Forty six states. Uh.
43:34
Speaker 1: The attorney generals from forty states were involved. UH. And
43:37
Speaker 1: they obviously couldn't pay that out all at once, but
43:40
Speaker 1: what they were ordered to do was UM pay out
43:43
Speaker 1: for medical costs for smoking related illness over the course
43:46
Speaker 1: of twenty five years UM. The next highest was the
43:50
Speaker 1: BP spill for twenty billion. Volkswagen comes in at number
43:55
Speaker 1: three with fourteen point seven billion, and that one was
43:58
Speaker 1: pretty significant and that it wasn't a coupon payout, it
44:02
Speaker 1: was it was a pretty good restitution. I think in
44:05
Speaker 1: that they said, you know what, we will actually buy
44:08
Speaker 1: back We'll fix your car for nothing, or we will
44:11
Speaker 1: buy back your car or d your lease with no penalty.
44:15
Speaker 1: And this is when Volkswagen cheated the software to try
44:18
Speaker 1: and cheat US emissions tests so wrong, it was a
44:22
Speaker 1: big scandal. Um, there's plenty of there are still like
44:26
Speaker 1: unfolding as we speak, like the Johnson and Johnson Malcolm
44:28
Speaker 1: powder one UM. If you watch Sveengoli or anything else
44:33
Speaker 1: on ME TV, you're probably well well versed in UM,
44:36
Speaker 1: the Boy Scout of America UM sex abuse case that's ongoing.
44:42
Speaker 1: Apparently brother was one of the first plaintiffs in that case.
44:46
Speaker 1: Oh I think I remember you talking about that. Yeah.
44:49
Speaker 1: Now there's like seventy thousand members of that class and growing. UM.
44:54
Speaker 1: And then there's if you've ever heard that ad for
44:57
Speaker 1: MEZO book, that's actually a MESO theely ooma guide that
45:01
Speaker 1: you will get sent to you by the lawyer of
45:04
Speaker 1: that class action UM settlement who's still looking for plaintiffs
45:10
Speaker 1: UM from against the asbestos manufacturers. So there's still plenty
45:14
Speaker 1: on going. Like now that we've talked about this, it'll
45:17
Speaker 1: be like that bider mine Hoff thing, well you you'll
45:19
Speaker 1: see class action ads on TV all the time, now, yeah,
45:24
Speaker 1: I mean there in Ron was a big one. Remember
45:27
Speaker 1: Finn Finn the diet drug, That was a big one.
45:30
Speaker 1: That was a three point eight billion dollar payout. UM
45:34
Speaker 1: the silicon breast implants, that was a big payout. Yes,
45:38
Speaker 1: But that one, from what I understand, was total bs.
45:40
Speaker 1: It was it was based on medical hysteria, and later
45:43
Speaker 1: science backed up the company's claims that they had nothing
45:47
Speaker 1: to do with. I think it was connective tissue disorder UM.
45:52
Speaker 1: The science. Nobody was carrying out the science. It was
45:54
Speaker 1: all basically paid testimony for the plaintiffs UM, who were
45:59
Speaker 1: not necessarily even scientists. And the on the other side.
46:03
Speaker 1: Nobody had any science. And then science came later on,
46:05
Speaker 1: but it was after this settlement had been reached for
46:07
Speaker 1: billions of dollars. That was a bit of a scam.
46:10
Speaker 1: It turns out. Did they get it back? I don't.
46:13
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Probably not. That's not how it works.
46:16
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Section suit, right, yeah, it's millions
46:24
Speaker 1: of people. You got anything else? I got nothing else?
46:29
Speaker 1: All right, Well, if you want to know more about
46:30
Speaker 1: class action lawsuits, just watch me TV. Uh. And since
46:34
Speaker 1: I said that, it's time for a listener mail. Hey guys,
46:40
Speaker 1: this is another coincidence email, and this one. You know,
46:43
Speaker 1: we eat a lot of these, like, Hey, I was
46:44
Speaker 1: listening to the show and there was a tornado near
46:47
Speaker 1: me or whatever on tornadoes, but I thought this one
46:50
Speaker 1: was special. Hey, guys, I was listening to the Fort
46:54
Speaker 1: Knox episode. In the listener letter about wetlands and having
46:57
Speaker 1: to be happening to be at a wetland, I might
46:59
Speaker 1: share I've had two very random coincidental things. A few
47:03
Speaker 1: years back. I was driving into the small town into
47:06
Speaker 1: a small town in southwest Colorado where I live, and
47:09
Speaker 1: one of you mentioned a penny farthing. Uh. If you
47:12
Speaker 1: don't know what a penny farthing is, dear listener, is
47:15
Speaker 1: the bicycle with that giant, giant front wheel and the
47:18
Speaker 1: tiny little back wheel from the what I mean with
47:21
Speaker 1: those nineteenth century I guess yeah, early the two. Um,
47:27
Speaker 1: I glanced over to the bike lane, and sure enough,
47:30
Speaker 1: there was a guy riding a penny fark thing. That
47:32
Speaker 1: is that is the most amazing thing I've heard in
47:35
Speaker 1: a long time. I've never seen one in real life,
47:37
Speaker 1: even I don't think I have. I think I've seen
47:39
Speaker 1: like an antique in the store or something like that,
47:41
Speaker 1: but I've never seen somebody riding. Although this would not
47:45
Speaker 1: be nearly as amazing if the person turns out to
47:48
Speaker 1: be writing from Brooklyn, because I'm sure that's a pretty
47:52
Speaker 1: common sight from Brooklyn to Colorado would be something else. Yeah,
47:57
Speaker 1: I guess. But one of the chances this guy's listening
47:59
Speaker 1: to that, that's amazing thing. That's it is astounding. And
48:02
Speaker 1: why were we even talking about Penny Farthings in the
48:04
Speaker 1: first place. You know, it's a good word. Uh. It
48:07
Speaker 1: was the first time I had seen one of those
48:08
Speaker 1: in that town I've lived in for twenty five years.
48:10
Speaker 1: Next was this summer, after dropping off some clients to
48:13
Speaker 1: put on your episode about ice climbing, just as I
48:15
Speaker 1: was driving out of town, Uh, to a to a
48:19
Speaker 1: mecca destination for ice climbers around the world. It's a
48:23
Speaker 1: little less impressive. Yeah, And that is from Sean and
48:29
Speaker 1: until you ride Colorado. Very nice, Sean, Thank you for
48:32
Speaker 1: the first anecdote, the second one, thanks for nothing. If
48:37
Speaker 1: you want to get in touch with this like Sean did,
48:39
Speaker 1: and tell us your best anecdote, we want to hear it. Um.
48:43
Speaker 1: You can get in touch with this via email at
48:45
Speaker 1: stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should
48:51
Speaker 1: Know is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts
48:54
Speaker 1: for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts,
48:57
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.