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.