Tag Archives: supreme court

Business v. Class Action

How much are you signing away to get that sweet, sweet 1994 Toyota Tercel?

An article in the New York Times caught my attention today.  It’s about the fallout from the 2011 Supreme Court decision in AT&T v. Concepcion, which stated that corporations can write clauses into contracts to prevent class action lawsuits.  To do this, the clauses require customers to settle disputes through arbitration (instead of in an actual court of law) and to relinquish their right to litigate as a class.  In effect, the contracts waive the customers’ right to due process.  Since that decision, the legal world has changed.  For the better or for worse?

Keep reading the full post to see what’s up with these clauses and to learn a tip on how to get around them.

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What Happens to Unused Class Action Settlement Money?

Justice

We often hear about bigtime class action settlements, the ones with millions of dollars set up in trusts and application processes to benefit from.  Like the $325 million Apple antenna lawsuit, or the recent $3 million Nutella settlement.  In these types of settlements, the number of people affected by them (the “class”) is unknown, so the settlement money is put into a fund and a time period is given in which class members can sign up to receive some of the money from that fund.  The total settlement award that we read about in the papers, however, is actually an upper bound.  That’s the limit — once it’s reached, it’s hard cheese for any more people who want to benefit.  Very rarely is the full amount given out.  More often, the upper bound is not reached and some money is left sitting in the trust.  What happens to this money?

Read more to see the answer to that clearly rhetorical question