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Class Action Suit Goodies Await Tech Users
jfruh writes "Did you buy an Acer laptop with Vista and less than 1 GB of RAM? The company has a thumb drive it would like to send you. Did you get an unwanted text from Papa John's? The company would like to make it up with you with $50 worth of free pizza. These and other little rewards are available as a result of class action lawsuits that have wound their ways through the court systems and now, years later, are paying off for very large groups of tech users." I wonder how many USB drives the lawyers took as their share.
It sounds more like these settlements are paying off for the defendants. Papa John's pulled off an especially neat trick there, getting the court to accept pizza the customers don't want in lieu of statutory damages.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
These aren't the results of judgments, they're the rewards for settlements. So if you ever wondered why the end result is so awful it's because the actual money goes to the lawyers while the people for which the lawsuit was intended to provide justice get cheap plastic kazoos. This is supposed to be okay, though, because "class action lawsuits are intended to punish companies, not restore damages." The best part is that by accepting your cheap plastic kazoo you're also signing away any other legal recourse you may have had.
The point of a class action lawsuit isn't, unfortunately, to compensate the members of the class. The point of a class action lawsuit is that there are too many people who suffered minor damages to really be able to logistically handle that.
The primary point of a class action lawsuit isn't to "fight for the little guy," it is to punish companies that do wrong. If lawyers end up making $2 billion off a lawsuit, well, that's $2 billion out of the company's coffers. And before you go spouting off about how ultimately they pass that cost on to customers, maybe they do, but if so, that puts them at a disadvantage compared to other companies. Or put another way, if Domino's is giving their customers good quality pizza while Papa John's is skimping because they are trying to pass a $2 billion lawsuit judgment on to their customers, they'll lose market share. But I digress...
Anyway, I don't necessarily agree that the lawyers should make so much off of a class action lawsuit, although they really should make a lot, since they're handling the details of compensation which costs a lot more than most people think. What I'd like to see is some kind of public fund set up for money like this to go into, such as to build parks or something, so that the end effect of punishing the companies is maintained but the incredible amount of time, effort, and money that goes towards mailing a few people checks for a buck or two isn't wasted. At least that way, you also avoid the problem that class action payouts usually aren't that high since most eligible claimants won't bother to jump through the hoops to get their judgment.
The sad truth of it is that the poor lawyers probably did not get any thumb drives at all and had to make due with nothing more than millions of dollars for their trouble.
Product paid for by future cuts = free product now and none of my business later when the company cuts quality or raises prices to compensate.
A free pizza from Papa Johns today that will result in higher prices tomorrow means I buy Little Caesars tomorrow.
A "windfall" ACER USB drive in my hand today that raises Acer prices across means I buy a Dell PC instead.
It's called the free market. You're free to charge whatever you want, and I'm free to buy from someone else.