In California, if a defendant loses in small claims court, there is an automatic appeal right to have the case heard de novo by a judge of the Superior Court. "De novo" means the case is heard fresh and the small claims proceeding has no bearing on it whatever - in essence, you get to go through the same sort of expedited hearing procedure (no formal pleadings, no discovery, no formal rules of evidence, etc.) but in front of a real judge. The hearing is held, typically lasts no more than an hour, and (usually) an immediate decision is rendered and that is where it ends. Thus, even after this sort of appeal, a lay plaintiff can still have a potentially effective remedy for getting a quick decision.
As I read this piece, however, I was most struck not so much by how the small claims remedy is particularly effective (in reality, this is a highly variable forum at best) but rather by what a joke the typical class action settlement can be. While that vehicle has occasionally proven effective in high profile cases, for the run-of-the-mill class action case you can often get a plaintiff's firm that is pretty much gaming the system to get a fee windfall for itself even as it puts a relatively low priority on the remedy it gets for the class of victims supposedly being represented. That is why remedies rarely take the form of significant cash payouts to members of the represented class and why the first instinct you have whenever you get one of those class notices is to simply throw it away rather than bothering to read all the fine print that might lead to your getting a $10 recovery or some such thing.
It is interesting to see how enhanced connectivity in our modern era is threatening to disrupt the cozy sorts of settlements so achieved through this vehicle. Probably the biggest losers will be the plaintiffs' class-action lawyers themselves, who might wind up having their back-room settlements more easily rejected and be left actually having to work hard to get a real recovery for the victims in lieu of taking a quick and inadequate deal that benefits primarily the lawyers.
So the justification for the modern class action suit is to save on court resources, so you don't have to litigate basically the same facts thousands of times.
Getting rid of it would have consequences that aren't straight forward to predict. On one hand, it would definitely hurt certain plaintiff's lawyers who depend on these blockbuster class actions. On the other hand, it would be good for plaintiff's lawyers generally, because there would be a lot more suits without the consolidation process of a class action. And it would be good for defense lawyers, since there would be more suits to defend against.
As for the impact on consumers, the vast majority would just choose not to litigate for the small sums involved. I'm not going to litigate over a fault $1,000 laptop, but I'd be happy to get a $100 settlement over it, even though it's at a huge discount over maybe what my claim might've been.
Yeah, class-action may as well be criminal law. Any benefit to society comes from the risk of punishment to wrongdoers, rather than the amends to the wronged.
It seems that this could only work on certain types of cases where the damage to the individuals is sufficient to make this worth the trouble. Many class actions are class actions precisely because the amount involved for each plaintiff is far to small to make suing worth the trouble, even.
In these cases, it is likely that many of thsoe wronged by the companies actions would be and perhaps are more concerned with seeing the defendant deterred from repeating their improper action then they are in individual compensation.
Still, it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
>The hearing is held, typically lasts no more than an hour, and (usually) an immediate decision is rendered and that is where it ends. Thus, even after this sort of appeal, a lay plaintiff can still have a potentially effective remedy for getting a quick decision.
Doesn't that also apply to the defendant? If the plaintiff can use this procedure, Honda can too. What stops Honda from appealing all of these decisions and getting the vast majority of them thrown out?
As someone else pointed out, the attorney costs are likely more than the judgement.
On the flip side, it's death by a thousand cuts. Even just 500 customers causing a stink with little court cases all over the place are a reporter's wet dream. It's an army of self-made David's taking on Goliath. Throw in that - in many cases - they may have a local David and there will be a swarm of "local man fights monster mega corp" stories all over.
And as a few of the cases get settled, it becomes ammunition for the next cases. And that works both ways.
I actually considered objecting to one of the class action lawsuits where I was a member of the class due to this. I actually wound up being a part of the class action lawsuits against Microsoft not once, but twice. While in the Iowa case, they actually got a half-decent settlement, the Arizona case was a joke.
The settlement size was pitiful and they chose to "donate" any unclaimed funds to the schools, but they could only be used to buy Microsoft products. Technically, they could be used for whole computers (but not peripherals), but I know enough about their OEM agreements to know that they get paid per computer shipped, no matter what OS is on it, so they were just funneling any unclaimed money back to themselves and forcing the schools to deal with red tape in the process.
I wanted to object, but the lawyers I talked to said it was a waste of time and going at it pro se doubly so. With the Comes documents not yet online, the only thing I could have proven legally was that I was a member of the class. In the end, they just approved the settlement. I think I got a voucher or something as compensation for that one.
"It is interesting to see how enhanced connectivity in our modern era is threatening to disrupt the cozy sorts of settlements so achieved through this vehicle. Probably the biggest losers will be the plaintiffs' class-action lawyers themselves, who might wind up having their back-room settlements more easily rejected and be left actually having to work hard to get a real recovery for the victims in lieu of taking a quick and inadequate deal that benefits primarily the lawyers."
It's also interesting to see how the idea of justice and representation has morphed into farming.
As I read this piece, however, I was most struck not so much by how the small claims remedy is particularly effective (in reality, this is a highly variable forum at best) but rather by what a joke the typical class action settlement can be. While that vehicle has occasionally proven effective in high profile cases, for the run-of-the-mill class action case you can often get a plaintiff's firm that is pretty much gaming the system to get a fee windfall for itself even as it puts a relatively low priority on the remedy it gets for the class of victims supposedly being represented. That is why remedies rarely take the form of significant cash payouts to members of the represented class and why the first instinct you have whenever you get one of those class notices is to simply throw it away rather than bothering to read all the fine print that might lead to your getting a $10 recovery or some such thing.
It is interesting to see how enhanced connectivity in our modern era is threatening to disrupt the cozy sorts of settlements so achieved through this vehicle. Probably the biggest losers will be the plaintiffs' class-action lawyers themselves, who might wind up having their back-room settlements more easily rejected and be left actually having to work hard to get a real recovery for the victims in lieu of taking a quick and inadequate deal that benefits primarily the lawyers.