December 8, 2020 • 49 mins
Class action lawsuits seem a little odd – a bunch of people get together for a sue-fest against somebody – but in the legal world they’re a practical way of handing huge wrongs. And! They keep justice just in their way. Learn all about them today.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you should know, A production of I
Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
um Legal, Egal Clark. There's Chuck Man that was gonna
(00:22):
be Jerry's all right, well, Jerry can be Robert Redford,
so Chuck, Deborah Winger Bryant, and then Jerry Robert Redford,
Roland And this is stuff you should know. I never
saw that movie, really, yeah, I just want you know.
I was gonna too young for a legal procedural, I think,
(00:44):
and then I just never caught up to it. Not
just a legal procedural, a romance one too, Yeah, boring.
I saw it a bunch of times when I was
younger for some reason. I guess my mom must have
been into it or something. Now is just a long
for the ride, right exactly. Yeah, but it was good
if I remember correctly, We're uh, yeah, it was a
(01:06):
good I mean, you can't go wrong with either one
of those two, you know, wasn't there a third? Uh?
Legal Eagles three Olympus has fallen? I think there a
third person in that. Wouldn't it a romantic triangle? Or
am I just making that up? I don't know, I
(01:27):
don't I think you're there's the Last Days of Disco.
I'm looking now, Darryll Hannah's on the cover, so she
might have been popped in for a tasteful nude. Then
she probably plays a big she convulsives on the floor. Um,
you know she's married to right, No, Neil Young, I
didn't know that. I could totally see that now that
(01:48):
you say it, though. Yeah, they're the reason that Neil
Young and David Cross or David Cross would be funny.
David Crosby don't speak to each other anymore. Why did
did David Crosby used to like Daryl Hannah. No, he's
he's just a big jerk, and he like said something
about her in an interview that wasn't nice, like right
when they got together. Gez problem dead to me, He's
(02:11):
he's a notorious jerk. I didn't even know that, but
I could kind of see it. You know, he admits it.
That's even worse. I think that's worse. People who are like,
I'm just I'm just a jerk. Deal with it. It's like, no,
why don't you change your personality a little bit to
conform a little better to the rest of our expectations?
You s ob well, let me rephrase that. He and
(02:34):
this is all coming from the great, great documentary about him,
recent one. He is he admits it and has deep
regrets over how he treated people. Oh well that's good. Yeah,
who regrets his behaviors? That makes it easier to kick
somebody when they're down. You know, if they're like, deal
with it, you can't bring them down to your level
and kick them. But if they're like, I really regret everything,
(02:56):
you'd be like, yeah, you should really rub it in,
you know, especially as an old man. Sure, exactly so. Um. Obviously, today, Chuck,
we're talking about class action lawsuits. I think anybody who
could read the stuff you should know Tea Leaves could
have discerned that, or they could have just looked at
the title of the episode. Yeah you know something that
(03:19):
It occurred to me while we were doing researching this,
Like most I don't know about most, but many people
listening to this show have maybe even unknowingly been a
part of a class action lawsuit. Sure, I know I have.
I have to. I've gotten those little emails that say,
you know you got coming to you from whatever, right
(03:40):
You're like, every bit of your personal information was stolen
in the Equifax breach. So Aquifax is going to give
you some identity theft protection or a discount, which is
that's always the rub. Yeah, a lot of people probably
have been a part of a class action lawson. You
may not have been, may not have paid attention to it.
You may have gotten one of those things in the
(04:00):
mail and just been like what is this? Who cares?
Or even if you read the fine print, you might
have been like this is literally not worth my time
and responding for. But there's a lot of things that
happened in the fact by by the virtue of you
not responding to whatever card or something you saw, or
even like an ad on TV apparently qualifies as notifying
(04:23):
somebody that, hey, you may be a member of this
class action lawsuit. Yeah. I um, this kind of came
up recently in my life and that I've mentioned before
that I'm on a Facebook page of a community in
rural Georgia where I have some land in rural Georgia,
And uh, there are some Donald Trump's reporters that were
(04:43):
pretty upset that we're asking if they could bring a
class action lawsuit to overturn the election. Uh, presumably because
they don't like the result. But I didn't get involved
and jump in there and say, you know, you, like
what kind of damage is you gonna prove or whatever, UM,
because I think it would be interesting to try and
prove emotional and psychological damage for an election result. That
(05:08):
would be an interesting case. But that is I mean
that is it would be like most of the cases
around the election it turns out. But with the um.
With with that though, like you've kind of hit upon
a few things here, That the idea that there's a
group of people who were wronged in some way in
similar ways, who on their own might not get anywhere
(05:30):
with the case, but collectively like pulling together there their
resources UM or they're the multiple harms done UM like
taking those individual harms and tournament in one big, mushy pile.
That's the basis of a class action lawsuit. And it
really kind of gets to the heart of why they exist,
(05:50):
and that is that a lot of times, UM, you're
suing like like a big giant corporation with enormous resources
at their disposed of, they can you all day long
until not only does the lawsuit go away, but you
don't have any money left. And when you really look
at it. At the end of the day, you might
have really just been after a hundred or a thousand,
(06:12):
or even ten thousand, or even a hundred thousand dollars
worth of damages, which might seem like a lot to you,
but might actually be less than the amount that you
would spend on that case. And so when you when
you face those kind of odds, that kind of challenge,
you're just not going to file that suit. Any reasonable
reasonable person wouldn't file a lawsuit like that. But the
(06:34):
problem is, if that's the case, then that means that
giant corporations who are doing ill stuff, um can just
keep doing ill stuff, which is a new phrase. I'm
working on them taking it out for a walk, right term. Okay, well,
then this is an homage to the b Boys. But
the the idea that that that if you know, people
(06:57):
are just gonna let them get away with it because
it's like they can't for the court fees. That's a problem.
Which is one of the big things that that is
one of the big benefits that class action suits provided.
You can take all the separate people, put them together,
and now all of a sudden you have a formidable opponent. Yeah,
and it's obviously a part of civil law as opposed
to criminal law. Um, where I mentioned you have to
(07:18):
have some sort of injury. It could be physical, could
be emotional, psychological, obviously financial. Uh, And it's what's known
as a device and civil litigation, and all that means
is sort of that it doesn't really it's sort of
the same thing as any other civil case, but it
just allows multiple people to take part, and you know,
we'll go over all the little minor differences, but it's
(07:42):
sort of like treating that big body of people as
a single plaintiff, and in fact they do have to
even have a representative plaintiff. Like it can't be you know,
all Volkswagen owners versus Volkswagen. It would be and of
course we'll talk about that real case, but I'm just
making this up. It would be Josh Clark versus Volkswagen,
(08:02):
and then Josh Clark would have a million angry Germans
standing behind him. Do I win in this in this
theoretical lawsuit? Tell me what's the shouldn't a big Volkswagen
because that was a real case that we'll talk about,
but let's say it was, Oh, I don't know, Uh,
you go Josh Clark versus you go Okay, yeah, sure,
(08:24):
I don't think Hugo was trying to advertise itself as anything,
but you goos that was their whole stick, you know,
super cheap. You don't see those on the road much anymore,
do you. Oh no, I think after just a couple
of years you stop seeing those on the road. But yeah,
you have a representative plaintiff or a lead plaintiff, and
there's is the name that appears on the case. Even
though and then we'll learn later to that they in
(08:46):
fact also they get a little bump, a little extra
money for being the lead plaintiff. Yes, they do get
a little because they're the ones who have to go
through all this stuff. They might have to show up
to court. They're the ones who have to coordinate with
the lawyers. They're the ones actually suing. But the thing is,
as if you show up and say, I am uh
a uh, well, we'll take a We'll take a recent example.
(09:09):
I used Johnson. I'm a woman here in this in
this situation, i have a vagina and every day, for
fifty years I've been using Johnson and Johnson's baby powder
on my vaginal region. And as a result, I have
ovarian cancer and the doctors have said, yeah, Calcoulm powder
is really bad for you. Johnson and Johnson's known as forever,
(09:29):
but they just didn't tell anybody. Um, So I want
to sue Johnson and Johnson and the legal offices that
I walk into and say this too. The first of all,
the lawyer is gonna jump up and click as heels
and then say I'm very sorry that this is happening
to you. But the lawyer will probably think, you know,
there's a lot of people who use Johnson's and Johnson
(09:50):
and Johnson's baby powder. I wonder if there's anybody else
like you. Will start to do research, and all of
a sudden, your one lawsuit is going to include a
lot more people and will probably become s defy as
a class action lawsuit. But you, the person who initially
filed this, will remain that representative plain if Yeah, boy,
I gotta say that that story had a lot of
(10:10):
emotional peaks and valleys. Thank you. I'm doing much better now,
by the way. Good. I'm glad the uh and you
know it does usually but not always, because there are
also cases like in Ron, which we'll talk a little
bit about but a lot of times it involves product liability. UM.
When bridge Stone Firestone had stuff going on there in
(10:34):
the early nineteen nineties and I guess for a decade,
the US came down and the judge said, from anyone
who had car owned or least one through two thousand
one Piotoford explorer during those years, then you are part
of this class. They call that the class, and then
(10:55):
uh the attorney who represents that class, and we'll talk
about how they get selected. They are many times referred
to as class council, which sounds very much like some
middle school title that you would run for or something.
But whenever we say class council, just think that's the
attorney representing all these people, right class. Yeah, so you
(11:17):
want to take a break and then talk a little
bit about the history of this stuff. Yeah, let's do it. Okay, stop,
(11:38):
you know, stop stop? Shouldn't you know? You stop? You know?
Stop stop? Shouldn't you know? So? Chucky said that class
action lawsuits are are a type of civil law right
which is not criminal law. But even more specifically than that, UM,
(12:01):
because they're a part of civil law, they're actually based
on common law, which is the legal body that's been
formed over the centuries, starting in England and even further
back than that. It turns out the Vikings are really
the first court that was ever set up in Europe.
Um that they actually started a lot of the legal
(12:21):
precedent that made its way over to England, that in
turn made its way over to America. So helmet tip
to the Vikings for all that. But um, the common
law is like the sum of all the judicial decisions
made over those centuries that set precedent, that was built
on and expanded on and refined. That's common law, and
(12:44):
common law um is the basis of originally of hearing
um these kinds of cases which are class action lawsuits. Yeah,
and these they didn't call them class action suits in eleven,
but they had them. And it wasn't, you know, thousands
of people against a tire company. It was a few people.
(13:06):
But uh, in England they allowed a handful of people
to get together occasionally in the in the village. And
you know, maybe I'm not sure. I didn't really find
why exactly they did this. Initially, My guests would just
be efficiency of the court maybe early on um, which
is sort of how it still is in a lot
(13:27):
of ways. Rather than trying thousands of cases or even
hundreds of thousands of cases, you can just get everyone
together in one room, and that's what they did in England.
They allowed a few people to file a single complaint
against the court. And this kind of carried over over
the years, eventually into Colonial America, along with some other
stuff dealing with law. Like like you said, a lot
(13:50):
of it sort of some didn't stick, some did, Yeah, no.
And there's like a period apparently from about the middle
of the UM I guess about the off teen hundreds
and the fourteen hundreds to the middle of the nineteenth
century where this just kind of went away in England,
but it persisted in Colonial America UM and then carried
(14:10):
on and then went back to England, UH and found
purchase in about the middle of the nineteenth century in
England's equity courts, which is a specific kind of court.
It's now part of regular civil court now, but for
a little while it was its own thing where if say, like, um,
you hired a tin smith to make a gravy boat
(14:30):
for you in like seventeen fifty eight, UM, you you
would take that guy to civil court if he if
he gave you one that was like, you know, only
half of a gravy boat. You couldn't hold gravy in it.
So what are you gonna do with this thing? Um,
it's totally useless. So you take the tin smith to court, Well,
you would probably expect money for damages, the money that
(14:53):
you gave him return to you. Civil court would handle that.
If you wanted to say, make the tin smith finish
the job, to complete this this gravy boat, then you
would probably take him to equity court. Equity court was
court that had to do with everything except monetary damages
or criminal court. It was the creative kind of court
(15:14):
where it really kind of called on to judge's um,
fairness and imagination to solve whatever problem was brought before it.
And this these equity courts, like we said, like I said, um,
we're we're eventually fused into regular civil court. But they
are where our understanding, like the modern understanding of class
(15:35):
action lawsuits were born. I get some of the eighteenth
century gravy man. I love gravy. I don't care what
century is from. It's a good band name too. So
the problem with equity courts, even early on is that
there was really no um kind of codified procedure for everything,
especially as these cases got bigger and bigger. Uh, as
(15:57):
far as people grouping up, there was no standard procedure.
And one of the biggest challenges with that, our guess
biggest controversies was whether or not people that weren't a
part of that case technically, um, but we're still a
part of it because they had the wagon wheel made
by the the local town smith that was faulty, whether
(16:19):
or not they signed up or not for that case,
whether they were bound by that decision. And it's a
little counter intoive to think about that, like who cares
if if Goody Smith isn't a part of this case,
maybe he doesn't care that his wagon wheel is faulty
or not. But what this does, if you look at
(16:40):
it on the other side, is Goody Smith can't like,
once they settle this thing, Goody Smith can't come along
and then say, well, I want to see you separately.
So then Goody Smith couldn't come come around later, or
I guess until they changed it, he could come around
later and sue again. But they had to work all
this out. They were like, that's not fair. You can't
have this big civil case, have someone technically be a
(17:01):
part of it but not assigned to it, and then
later on try and get their own separate damages. Right So,
but but I mean that's I think how it was
for a good almost a century, a little over a century,
where you could say, like, I didn't have anything to
do with this thing. Goody by the way, short for
good wife. So it's like Mrs Smith, well, I was
(17:22):
just kidding around anyway. So um yeah, but like the
the the ninth grade crucible reader in me could not
just let that pass. Remember that play? I do? I
love it? Um. So the thing is like for a
good century, like if you if even if you were
considered somebody who would be a member of that class,
(17:43):
if you hadn't signed onto this lawsuit, you could come
back around and say I didn't have anything to do
with that, like I want to sue you myself. And
that did kind of make things unwieldy because one of
the purposes nowadays for filing a class action lawsuit, at
least as are as like the defendant, like say the
big corporation is concerned, is to just settle this once
(18:04):
and for all, and so Eventually they came up with
something called Rule forty eight, which UM started to kind
of um include. It was like the birth of the
rules for class action lawsuits UM and Rule forty eight
morphed into Rule twenty three, Rule twenty three. Eventually nineteen
(18:25):
sixty six said you know what, We're just going to
say this, if you qualify as a member of a
class action class, even if you have nothing to do
with this, if you don't sign on, you're considered bound
to the decision, which means if you, if like the
people suing these people lose, you can't go back and
(18:46):
and sue them again and try yourself. You're bound by
that decision. And in nineteen sixty six they said, well,
how are we going to do this? And they said, well,
we need to just notify people, give people the option
to say I don't want to have anything to do
with the suit because I do want to see these
people on my own. And as long as you've give
them that option, the whole thing seemed pretty fair. Yeah.
(19:06):
Ninety seven was when the Supreme Court first adopted these
rules of civil procedure and the beginnings of Rule twenty three.
And this is when they sort of just dissolved a
lot of the separation between the law courts and equity courts.
But it was until sixty six that they finally realized
that was an issue. And they also, I mean, it's
a pretty um, it's a pretty dense thing Rule twenty three.
(19:29):
That was a lot that went on, and then that
was admitted again in two thousand five with the Class
Action Fairness Act, which among other things, said that, um,
you know, if it's over five million bucks, then this
has gotta go to federal court, federal district court because
that's too much money. Um. Another one of the things
from the Fairness Act of two thousand five is it
(19:51):
laid out some other criteria aside from the five million bucks. Um.
It said that any case involving planeiffs or of defendants
from like a bunch of ferent states. So if it's
like all across the country basically, and they call that
diversity jurisdiction, then the federal court can actually, uh, it
has to go to federal court under that case, right.
And then also if it's a hundred people are over it,
(20:14):
typically a hundred hundred plaintiffs are over it typically goes
to federal court. And I get the impression federal courts
is basically like, we're a little more equipped for this,
this the complexities and intricacies of a class action lawsuit.
That's the impression I have to you. Yeah, I mean,
I think they're just set up for it. Um. I
(20:38):
imagine it would be tough for a state court to
handle a case like Firestone Bridge Stone with that many
hundreds of thousands of people, maybe even millions. I don't
know how many eventual plaintiffs there were, but that's a
lot of tires. So I think that's true. But I
also feel like this whole thing smacks of federal courts
just basically being like, you know, let's just admit it.
(20:59):
That's state courts are run by hay seeds and yokels.
That's what it smells like to me. There's definitely the
undercurrent rules state court rules, that's right. So, um that
Rule twenty three, which again is very dense, as you said,
but it's also ominous sounding if you ask me, Rule
(21:20):
twenty three sounds like it's gonna mess you up pretty good. Um.
But it's basically the body of understanding for class action
lawsuits that's been established, you know, since the thirties up
to two thousand five with the Class Action Fairness Act,
like you were saying, and if you read it, you
can basically get a pretty good idea of what has
(21:40):
to happen for a class action lawsuit to go forward. Um.
Apparently each state has its own rules, but as far
as the federal districts are concerned, UM rule twenty three
is is it? And the first thing you have to
do is you have to become certified as a class
like your your lawsuit has to go from it's is
me suing you know, um, Exxon for the oil spill. Two.
(22:06):
I've got all these other neighbors and cannary owners around
here who are all affected by this oil spill. Um,
and we think we we have a good case against Exxon.
And very importantly, we all have the same kind of harm.
We have a common complaint, which is Exon spilled a
bunch of oil, messed up our livelihood and our lives um.
(22:28):
And we all you know, because we all have the
same kind of case. The defense Exxon could mount the
same defense against all of these complaints, so we would
probably be certified as as a class. Yeah, Like you know,
the common defense in the case of like Aaron Brockovich
that movie. I can't remember the name of the company
that was a defendant, but who wasn't Pacific Gas and Electricity,
(22:53):
the one who keeps setting off wildfires out in California.
So they couldn't then have a defense. Um, one defense
against like a certain number of people and are certain
kind of person in town, Let's say it's probably more applicable,
and then another for another kind of person in town.
They had to mount a common defense. It's basically, I
think all about equity, are making things equitable among kind
(23:18):
of for both sides. Yeah, which I thought was pretty interesting. Um,
and only you know, you have to get certified, and
only of lawsuits that are filed a class action even
get certification to begin with. Yeah, and the reason that
was lower than I thought, but I guess it also
makes sense. Um. What I could not find is this, Chuck,
(23:38):
what happens to the original lawsuit, the original plaintiff if
they're not certified as a class there as a class
action lawsuit, but you can probably just go sue on
your own. And I don't know, I cannot find out
the way that I couldn't find out was the case
that first piqued my interest about that was UM Duke's
(24:00):
versus Walmart. I think it was Dukes that all were
versus Walmart, which turned out to be the biggest class
action class ever created. It consisted of one and a
half million women who had been employed. It's bigger than
the US military, by the way, but they were every
(24:20):
woman who was employed by Walmart UM between I think
uh nine any time after UM and the whole the
whole lawsuit was that Walmart was basically promoting men more
quickly and giving men more resources to advance into management
positions than women. And the idea was that if you
(24:42):
were a woman, you were harmed by this, uh equally.
So it made sense that that that this would get
certified as a class action suit because any woman who
worked for Walmart would have been harmed by not having
the opportunity to advance. But then Walmart argued and said, well,
you know there's no national or company wide policy that
(25:03):
says you can't advance women, you can advance men more quickly.
That all of these advancement decisions are made up of
thousands and thousands of local decisions. So since there were
so many different decisions that affected all these different women.
This class doesn't make sense. And they actually went went
all the ways Supreme Court and Supreme courts at Walmart's right.
This is this doesn't make sense as a class action
(25:26):
suit because all of the harms could have been for
different reasons, carried up at different people. Um. But the
reason that does make sense to have that that certification
clause is because any defendant has a right to defend
themselves against any accusation in court. And so if everybody's
accusing them of the same harm, then it makes sense
(25:47):
of certifying them together as a class. If there's different
harms that aren't quite the same, then the defendant should
be able to defend against that that accusation, that accusation,
that accusation, and you shouldn't lump all those people together
into a whole class. Right. So the judges in charge
of defining the class. Uh, And like we said, it's
gotta you know, it's gotta be specific to the problem. Uh.
(26:11):
At hand, it can't be all Bridgetone tire owners it was,
unless it's all bridge Stone tires. But it's it turned
out it was just this one tire on this one car.
And so you have to really define that like if
you have this car during these years, Uh, then you
are part of this class. And um, from that point
it has the notification that we talked about has to
(26:32):
take place. Whether it's you know, you've seen TV commercials
probably to have this kind of thing. Uh, you see
advertisements in the newspaper, you probably get a mailer. It
depends on how broad it is. Um, they're not gonna
do a TV commercial if they don't need to, because
that costs money obviously, uh. And that's an expense. But
(26:52):
they're gonna notify everyone, uh, pretty in pretty quick order
because what they want is for every do you know
they were a part of this class, that's a part
of that class, and whether or not you want to
opt in or out. Uh. And if you opt out
and you are within the scope of that class, you
can you can do so if you want to. If
it's I'm not sure why anyone for these like kind
(27:15):
of small things that seemed to happen a lot, would
opt out. Uh. I think they probably just count on
people ignoring that kind of thing their check for five
dollars in the mail, but doing anything, Yeah, you can't
opt out if you're I don't know if you're a
person who's just like I don't want my name on
any list, and I don't want to be a part
(27:36):
of any you know, if you're kind of a uh,
paranoid type as far as the government and court cases go,
you may want to opt out just to not be
a part of something so small. Well, the I think
the reason that they included is because if you are
some Let's say you are somebody who um whose house
was washed away by the oil spill at the of
(27:59):
the X on L D s UM. But the class
action lawsuit was everyone who was affected by the oil,
so it would include people whose houses lived or whose
houses were a mile away, whose front yards got covered
in oil. Well, you'd be like, wait a minute, whatever
they're gonna get is nothing like what I need the
damages that I'm seeking, So I'm gonna opt out. Um
(28:21):
And because they can't yeah, and because there's tons of
real reasons to opt out. The five dollar check coming
from the credit card company. Sure, but I'm saying like
they can't differentiate who's who's getting that mailer from who's not,
which is why they put the onus on the person
getting that mailer. Seeing that TV commercial to say, oh,
I need to opt out because I need to sue
(28:42):
them on my own. I can't be part of this
class because when that settlement is reached and they say
everybody's gonna get five dollars for the for the trouble. Um,
that's what you got for your house being washed away,
you know what I mean. Yeah, So then the judge
is actually gonna appoint the council, which is different than
how it usually works. The judge is going to look
(29:03):
at this and say, um, and this is for uh,
I think for defense only, right. I guess the judge
can change the plaintiff, but it's typically the lawyer who
actually files the case. I think it's unusual for the
judge to overrule that unless it's someone who just doesn't
have the responsibility or maybe that kind of background. Sure, yeah,
(29:24):
I mean I think like, if um, somebody walked in
with the Johnson and Johnson complaint in the you know,
the lawyer was just like a local ambulance chaser, they
probably would get replaced with like a larger national firm
that had the resources or the understanding, that had like
contexts and like the um um uh professional um witness field.
(29:46):
As far as like medic medicine and cancer is concerned,
Like that guy just wouldn't have the resources, so he
might be changed. But yeah, I'm guessing it's probably rare.
Um But the point is that the judge has the
ability to who decide who is the lawyer for the
plaintiffs in the class action. Yeah, I think it's probably
(30:07):
more rare because lawyers understand this and they probably wouldn't
file if they knew that they would be replaced, unless
it's just to get it going and they know they're
going to be replaced, Like and what was the breaking
bad's been a better call Saul? When they I think
in like season two or something, when they figure out
that the nursing home is taking advantage of the seniors
(30:28):
overcharging them. Like the first thing that Saul Saul did
was go to the larger firm and say, like, we
need to partner up because he knew he couldn't handle
it himself. That's what I'm guessing happens. Yeah, and then, uh,
I didn't see better call Saul, But that sounds right
to me. Oh you didn't. It's not pretty good. It's
not breaking bad, but it doesn't seek to be breaking bad.
(30:51):
You know what I mean. Yeah, I've heard a lot
of people said, like it better, but I could see
that it's a difference. Um. And then eventually the judge
and again you know if you haven't noticed, and it's
sort of like in the early days, the judge has
a lot of a lot more say in class action
cases than a lot of other kinds of cases, really
making a lot of decisions that they don't get to
(31:12):
decide in other kinds of cases. In this case, one
of the final things they get to decide is the
distribution of damages. And they you know, they use other
people for insight, They develop a plan with people on
their team, but they developed this plan to distribute whatever
monetary damages, if it's you know, three billion dollars, they're
going to figure out how to approve that settlement and
(31:35):
how to distribute that settlement, including this is a very
key thing, as we'll see later, including how much those
attorneys are going to get paid. Right. Um, So you
want to take a break and then come back and
talk about some of the advantages and disadvantages of class
action suits. Yeah, let's do it. Yah, Stop you know stopping?
(32:12):
Shouldn't you know? Stop? You know? Stopping, shouldn't you know? So?
One of the big advantages obviously something we already mentioned, um,
a lot of people. There's power in numbers. A lot
of people is more significant than one person, and a
(32:33):
lot of people pulling their resources is more significant. Lawsuits
cost a lot of money and in many, many cases,
it is not worth it for someone to go after
a company for you know, you kind of just have
to do the math, like how much is this gonna
cost me, what's the potential payout? Is it worth the risk?
Whereas if you can band together with a bunch of
(32:54):
other people, it's a huge, huge advantage, right. One of
the other advantages is um the more people you have,
the more damages are going to be awarded if the
planeiffs win, which means you're going to start attracting increasingly
higher caliber lawyers to your cause who could be your
your class counsel. And the reason why is because in
(33:16):
cases where you're seeking damages, lawyers often don't get paid
unless they win. But if you win, then the lawyers
get a big fat pay day out of it. So
the bigger the class, the better the law firm um
or legal team representing that class is probably going to
be at least more experienced, you know, yeah, for sure.
(33:37):
Another huge advantage is is that you're going to get
your case hurt. If individual cases, they go first come,
first serve. So if an individual brings a big lawsuit
and they win, that company might be out of business
before you can even get your suit going. And if
you're part of a class action lawsuit, it's going to
(33:57):
make sure that everybody gets there p to the pie
basically exactly. So, Um, there's a lot of reasons to
do this. Another another one too, is it makes sense
for um corporations. They have an incentive to try to
settle fairly with a class action suit because it will
handle it will make this big years long, sometimes decade
(34:20):
long problems um go away finally, once and for all. Yeah.
And you know, there's a lot of press that comes
along with a class action suit. Yeah, far more pressed
than than an individual case. So it definitely behooves the
defense to try and get these things wrapped up quickly
because it's just bad news for them. Yeah. And on
(34:40):
the same on the other side of that same coin, Chuck,
like that large amount of press that gets generated by
these big, big cases also kind of keeps corporate mouth
feasans in line, you know, makes the company. It probably
does more than if we didn't have such things as
class action suits. But that's one of the theoret go
buy products about that. Yeah, I got some property to you.
(35:06):
Is it called the Brooklyn Bridge. It's wonderful. So. Um,
there are some problems with class action suits. They're not
the candy land that we've described them as entirely. Um. Instead,
there's there's a lot of um frivolous class action suits
that have been filed over the years, um by lawyers
who are looking to make a fast buck, in part
(35:28):
using that bad press as a threat, like do you
really want this to be you know, to get dragged
out in court, Just go ahead and settle, and you know,
I'm the lawyer. I'll take my big fat cut. Um.
And that's a that's a big problem actually, and that's
a big perceived problem too, that class uh class council
walk away, you know, whistling and laughing all the way
(35:50):
to the bank, while the individual members are just getting
five bucks for their their problems, even though they're the
ones who had the thing befall them in the first place. Yeah. Um.
And also, you know, if you choose. Like, let's use
that exon example. If you get bad legal advice in
your house was destroyed more than other people's property, and
(36:11):
you don't opt out, you can't then say, oh, well,
you know I only got this much. My whole house
was destroyed. I really want to bring a lawsuit again.
You can't do that unless you opt out. So that
is a disadvantage that you that's sort of your one
shot basically at any compensation. Yeah, I think the rule
of thumb is if you didn't even know that this
(36:33):
wrong had befallen you, it's probably not that big of
a deal, and you're not gonna want to opt out
because then that means you have to hire your own
lawyer and go through the trouble of suing somebody, which
is never pleasant or fun. Um. So, like I was saying,
like those those class lawyers are a favorite target of
tort reformists and critics because, um, the the if the
(36:58):
plainiffs win and the judge rules in the plane of favor,
one of the things that judge will do is figure
out what the compensation is for the lawyer. Uh is
going to be a lot of times that comes out
of the settlement right, Like, if everybody gets ten billion dollars,
the judge will say, well, you attorney who led this
case in your law firm and your legal team, you're
(37:18):
gonna get this fee. And I was reading up on it,
and it sounds like it's fairly arbitrary. There's no good
rule of thumb. And in fact, lawyers who represent class actions,
um may actually get a lower percentage fee than they
would if they were representing somebody on an individual basis.
(37:39):
But the thing is, these payouts can be so huge
that even if it's a really small percentage, it's going
to be just this incredibly large amount in real numbers.
And so a lot of people are like that, I
didn't earn that. They didn't they didn't deserve that, especially
when they find out that, you know, a million people
got a coupon for half of a free tire from
(37:59):
Firestone for having deadly tires on their car for ten years. Yeah,
those are and they you know, they tried to um,
they tried to rectify that in part of the the
c a f A. The Class Action Fairness Active two
thousand five. With these coupon settlements, those really rubbed me
the wrong way. Um. It wasn't a class action suit,
(38:20):
but there was something involved. At one point, I was
a season ticket holder for the Atlanta Falcons and I
can't remember what the deal was. Now, it wasn't a
class action suit, but there was something to where they
wronged the season ticket holders in some financial way. Terrible playing. Yeah,
we should have brought the class action suit for the
(38:40):
past thirty five years. Those North Georgia people would join it,
yeah exactly, but they um, they did that coupon thing,
and they were like, well, because of whatever it was,
this upcoming season, you'll season ticket holders will get off
anything from the Falcons merch store. And that just really me.
It's like because they're just you're spending more like the
(39:03):
people that fall for that, or just giving them even
more money. That's a big criticism is that it and
it it establishes or keeps established an ongoing uh commercial
relationship between the person who wronged you and you the
person suing them. Uh. And that is a big criticism.
Some people say a good A good reply to that
(39:24):
is just have cash settlements or UM. You could have
a whole product settlement like UM, rather than you having
a coupon for some percentage off, so you still have
to give them money. They say, we'll give you the
jersey of your choice, free and clear, and you never
have to see us again, or maybe even like from
the NFL dot com stort, it doesn't even have to
be like a foul a falcon's jersey. That's a solution
(39:46):
to that too. But one of the big problems was
lawyers who were representing these coupon cases. Um, they were
taking a percentage of the entire value of the ponds, right,
And so what Kafa in two thousand five or six
sought to change was saying, like, you really shouldn't do
(40:08):
that because a lot of people don't actually redeem that.
So you shouldn't get a percentage of the people's coupons
who are never going to redeem that coupon. You should
get a portion of the coupons that are going to
be redeemed. And that is just as hard. Figuring out
how many coupons are going to be redeemed is as
hard as it sounds from what I understand. Yeah, and
(40:29):
this there's one case in two thousand thirteen that you
sent over that was pretty interesting. There was a teenager.
His name was that guy who measured his subway sandwich
his foot long. We he was Australian, so say it
in Australian. He was that guy. Uh, And he measured
his foot long and it was only eleven inches long,
(40:50):
and he took it to attorney Jackie Childs, and then
Jackie Childs didn't take the case, and so the kid
went away. And then another kid measured his sandwich and
his name was well actually, and he actually got this
thing taken to court because he didn't have a twelve
inch sub on his from his subway sandwich. It it
(41:11):
baked up a little bit short, yes, and that was
an actual case. Of course, I'm getting around about those names.
But um, although I wish I wasn't. Uh, the attorneys there,
we're gonna get over a half a million dollars in
fees for what ended up being no pay out whatsoever,
just Subway saying we'll we'll make these things bake up
(41:34):
to twelve inches. Now, well, Subway even said we can't
guarantee that we cannot. They're like bread doesn't bake in
exactly the same way. It's just that's not how it works.
And the court eve intended to agree with that. But
the point was no one was going to get anything,
not even like a six inch sub nothing a free inch. Yeah,
not even a free inch. You're just going to get
(41:56):
you know, Subway will stay in business. But these lawyers
were going to get a half a million dollars and
the judges like, you know, I forget this, We're just
gonna dismiss this entire case. That's right. Jackie Childs was
very disappointed. There was also a similar um a similar
one when when the Center for Science and the Public
interests hire some lawyers to sue Coca Cola, who owned
(42:16):
Vitamin Water at the time. Envitamin Water used to have
this hilarious ad campaign where it promised all these ridiculous
health benefits that any reasonable person knew were not true,
and they were suing for that. They were actually suing
because vitamin water didn't disclose how much sugar it had
in it um. Even though it was ridiculous health claims,
(42:37):
it was still kind of purporting to be healthy, and
these the Center for the Science and the Public Interest
was like, this is not healthy at all, and so
they sued. Coca Cola didn't do anything but stopped I
think advertising the way that they were. But those lawyers
still got two point seven three million dollars in fees,
even though no one else got anything of sugar and
(42:59):
vitamin water. Yeah, I believe crazy tastes delicious. I don't.
I don't. I didn't know it head sugar in it.
That's I'm offended. That's why they got sued. Uh. And
you know, there have been some very famous civil class
action suits over the years. The largest ever obviously where
the tobacco settlements, and that was by tenfold next to
(43:22):
the second highest one, tobacco settlements. And I don't think
it's over yet even UM two hundred and six billion
dollars so far from that decision. Forty six states. Uh.
The attorney generals from forty states were involved. UH. And
they obviously couldn't pay that out all at once, but
what they were ordered to do was UM pay out
(43:43):
for medical costs for smoking related illness over the course
of twenty five years UM. The next highest was the
BP spill for twenty billion. Volkswagen comes in at number
three with fourteen point seven billion, and that one was
pretty significant and that it wasn't a coupon payout, it
was it was a pretty good restitution. I think in
(44:05):
that they said, you know what, we will actually buy
back We'll fix your car for nothing, or we will
buy back your car or d your lease with no penalty.
And this is when Volkswagen cheated the software to try
and cheat US emissions tests so wrong, it was a
big scandal. Um, there's plenty of there are still like
(44:26):
unfolding as we speak, like the Johnson and Johnson Malcolm
powder one UM. If you watch Sveengoli or anything else
on ME TV, you're probably well well versed in UM,
the Boy Scout of America UM sex abuse case that's ongoing.
Apparently brother was one of the first plaintiffs in that case.
(44:46):
Oh I think I remember you talking about that. Yeah.
Now there's like seventy thousand members of that class and growing. UM.
And then there's if you've ever heard that ad for
MEZO book, that's actually a MESO theely ooma guide that
you will get sent to you by the lawyer of
that class action UM settlement who's still looking for plaintiffs
(45:10):
UM from against the asbestos manufacturers. So there's still plenty
on going. Like now that we've talked about this, it'll
be like that bider mine Hoff thing, well you you'll
see class action ads on TV all the time, now, yeah,
I mean there in Ron was a big one. Remember
Finn Finn the diet drug, That was a big one.
That was a three point eight billion dollar payout. UM
(45:34):
the silicon breast implants, that was a big payout. Yes,
But that one, from what I understand, was total bs.
It was it was based on medical hysteria, and later
science backed up the company's claims that they had nothing
to do with. I think it was connective tissue disorder UM.
The science. Nobody was carrying out the science. It was
(45:54):
all basically paid testimony for the plaintiffs UM, who were
not necessarily even scientists. And the on the other side.
Nobody had any science. And then science came later on,
but it was after this settlement had been reached for
billions of dollars. That was a bit of a scam.
It turns out. Did they get it back? I don't.
I don't think so. Probably not. That's not how it works.
(46:16):
I don't think so. Section suit, right, yeah, it's millions
of people. You got anything else? I got nothing else?
All right, Well, if you want to know more about
class action lawsuits, just watch me TV. Uh. And since
I said that, it's time for a listener mail. Hey guys,
(46:40):
this is another coincidence email, and this one. You know,
we eat a lot of these, like, Hey, I was
listening to the show and there was a tornado near
me or whatever on tornadoes, but I thought this one
was special. Hey, guys, I was listening to the Fort
Knox episode. In the listener letter about wetlands and having
to be happening to be at a wetland, I might
share I've had two very random coincidental things. A few
(47:03):
years back. I was driving into the small town into
a small town in southwest Colorado where I live, and
one of you mentioned a penny farthing. Uh. If you
don't know what a penny farthing is, dear listener, is
the bicycle with that giant, giant front wheel and the
tiny little back wheel from the what I mean with
those nineteenth century I guess yeah, early the two. Um,
(47:27):
I glanced over to the bike lane, and sure enough,
there was a guy riding a penny fark thing. That
is that is the most amazing thing I've heard in
a long time. I've never seen one in real life,
even I don't think I have. I think I've seen
like an antique in the store or something like that,
but I've never seen somebody riding. Although this would not
be nearly as amazing if the person turns out to
(47:48):
be writing from Brooklyn, because I'm sure that's a pretty
common sight from Brooklyn to Colorado would be something else. Yeah,
I guess. But one of the chances this guy's listening
to that, that's amazing thing. That's it is astounding. And
why were we even talking about Penny Farthings in the
first place. You know, it's a good word. Uh. It
was the first time I had seen one of those
(48:08):
in that town I've lived in for twenty five years.
Next was this summer, after dropping off some clients to
put on your episode about ice climbing, just as I
was driving out of town, Uh, to a to a
mecca destination for ice climbers around the world. It's a
little less impressive. Yeah, And that is from Sean and
(48:29):
until you ride Colorado. Very nice, Sean, Thank you for
the first anecdote, the second one, thanks for nothing. If
you want to get in touch with this like Sean did,
and tell us your best anecdote, we want to hear it. Um.
You can get in touch with this via email at
stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should
(48:51):
Know is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts
for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you should know, A production of I
Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
um Legal, Egal Clark. There's Chuck Man that was gonna
(00:22):
be Jerry's all right, well, Jerry can be Robert Redford,
so Chuck, Deborah Winger Bryant, and then Jerry Robert Redford,
Roland And this is stuff you should know. I never
saw that movie, really, yeah, I just want you know.
I was gonna too young for a legal procedural, I think,
(00:44):
and then I just never caught up to it. Not
just a legal procedural, a romance one too, Yeah, boring.
I saw it a bunch of times when I was
younger for some reason. I guess my mom must have
been into it or something. Now is just a long
for the ride, right exactly. Yeah, but it was good
if I remember correctly, We're uh, yeah, it was a
(01:06):
good I mean, you can't go wrong with either one
of those two, you know, wasn't there a third? Uh?
Legal Eagles three Olympus has fallen? I think there a
third person in that. Wouldn't it a romantic triangle? Or
am I just making that up? I don't know, I
(01:27):
don't I think you're there's the Last Days of Disco.
I'm looking now, Darryll Hannah's on the cover, so she
might have been popped in for a tasteful nude. Then
she probably plays a big she convulsives on the floor. Um,
you know she's married to right, No, Neil Young, I
didn't know that. I could totally see that now that
(01:48):
you say it, though. Yeah, they're the reason that Neil
Young and David Cross or David Cross would be funny.
David Crosby don't speak to each other anymore. Why did
did David Crosby used to like Daryl Hannah. No, he's
he's just a big jerk, and he like said something
about her in an interview that wasn't nice, like right
when they got together. Gez problem dead to me, He's
(02:11):
he's a notorious jerk. I didn't even know that, but
I could kind of see it. You know, he admits it.
That's even worse. I think that's worse. People who are like,
I'm just I'm just a jerk. Deal with it. It's like, no,
why don't you change your personality a little bit to
conform a little better to the rest of our expectations?
You s ob well, let me rephrase that. He and
(02:34):
this is all coming from the great, great documentary about him,
recent one. He is he admits it and has deep
regrets over how he treated people. Oh well that's good. Yeah,
who regrets his behaviors? That makes it easier to kick
somebody when they're down. You know, if they're like, deal
with it, you can't bring them down to your level
and kick them. But if they're like, I really regret everything,
(02:56):
you'd be like, yeah, you should really rub it in,
you know, especially as an old man. Sure, exactly so. Um. Obviously, today, Chuck,
we're talking about class action lawsuits. I think anybody who
could read the stuff you should know Tea Leaves could
have discerned that, or they could have just looked at
the title of the episode. Yeah you know something that
(03:19):
It occurred to me while we were doing researching this,
Like most I don't know about most, but many people
listening to this show have maybe even unknowingly been a
part of a class action lawsuit. Sure, I know I have.
I have to. I've gotten those little emails that say,
you know you got coming to you from whatever, right
(03:40):
You're like, every bit of your personal information was stolen
in the Equifax breach. So Aquifax is going to give
you some identity theft protection or a discount, which is
that's always the rub. Yeah, a lot of people probably
have been a part of a class action lawson. You
may not have been, may not have paid attention to it.
You may have gotten one of those things in the
(04:00):
mail and just been like what is this? Who cares?
Or even if you read the fine print, you might
have been like this is literally not worth my time
and responding for. But there's a lot of things that
happened in the fact by by the virtue of you
not responding to whatever card or something you saw, or
even like an ad on TV apparently qualifies as notifying
(04:23):
somebody that, hey, you may be a member of this
class action lawsuit. Yeah. I um, this kind of came
up recently in my life and that I've mentioned before
that I'm on a Facebook page of a community in
rural Georgia where I have some land in rural Georgia,
And uh, there are some Donald Trump's reporters that were
(04:43):
pretty upset that we're asking if they could bring a
class action lawsuit to overturn the election. Uh, presumably because
they don't like the result. But I didn't get involved
and jump in there and say, you know, you, like
what kind of damage is you gonna prove or whatever, UM,
because I think it would be interesting to try and
prove emotional and psychological damage for an election result. That
(05:08):
would be an interesting case. But that is I mean
that is it would be like most of the cases
around the election it turns out. But with the um.
With with that though, like you've kind of hit upon
a few things here, That the idea that there's a
group of people who were wronged in some way in
similar ways, who on their own might not get anywhere
(05:30):
with the case, but collectively like pulling together there their
resources UM or they're the multiple harms done UM like
taking those individual harms and tournament in one big, mushy pile.
That's the basis of a class action lawsuit. And it
really kind of gets to the heart of why they exist,
(05:50):
and that is that a lot of times, UM, you're
suing like like a big giant corporation with enormous resources
at their disposed of, they can you all day long
until not only does the lawsuit go away, but you
don't have any money left. And when you really look
at it. At the end of the day, you might
have really just been after a hundred or a thousand,
(06:12):
or even ten thousand, or even a hundred thousand dollars
worth of damages, which might seem like a lot to you,
but might actually be less than the amount that you
would spend on that case. And so when you when
you face those kind of odds, that kind of challenge,
you're just not going to file that suit. Any reasonable
reasonable person wouldn't file a lawsuit like that. But the
(06:34):
problem is, if that's the case, then that means that
giant corporations who are doing ill stuff, um can just
keep doing ill stuff, which is a new phrase. I'm
working on them taking it out for a walk, right term. Okay, well,
then this is an homage to the b Boys. But
the the idea that that that if you know, people
(06:57):
are just gonna let them get away with it because
it's like they can't for the court fees. That's a problem.
Which is one of the big things that that is
one of the big benefits that class action suits provided.
You can take all the separate people, put them together,
and now all of a sudden you have a formidable opponent. Yeah,
and it's obviously a part of civil law as opposed
to criminal law. Um, where I mentioned you have to
(07:18):
have some sort of injury. It could be physical, could
be emotional, psychological, obviously financial. Uh, And it's what's known
as a device and civil litigation, and all that means
is sort of that it doesn't really it's sort of
the same thing as any other civil case, but it
just allows multiple people to take part, and you know,
we'll go over all the little minor differences, but it's
(07:42):
sort of like treating that big body of people as
a single plaintiff, and in fact they do have to
even have a representative plaintiff. Like it can't be you know,
all Volkswagen owners versus Volkswagen. It would be and of
course we'll talk about that real case, but I'm just
making this up. It would be Josh Clark versus Volkswagen,
(08:02):
and then Josh Clark would have a million angry Germans
standing behind him. Do I win in this in this
theoretical lawsuit? Tell me what's the shouldn't a big Volkswagen
because that was a real case that we'll talk about,
but let's say it was, Oh, I don't know, Uh,
you go Josh Clark versus you go Okay, yeah, sure,
(08:24):
I don't think Hugo was trying to advertise itself as anything,
but you goos that was their whole stick, you know,
super cheap. You don't see those on the road much anymore,
do you. Oh no, I think after just a couple
of years you stop seeing those on the road. But yeah,
you have a representative plaintiff or a lead plaintiff, and
there's is the name that appears on the case. Even
though and then we'll learn later to that they in
(08:46):
fact also they get a little bump, a little extra
money for being the lead plaintiff. Yes, they do get
a little because they're the ones who have to go
through all this stuff. They might have to show up
to court. They're the ones who have to coordinate with
the lawyers. They're the ones actually suing. But the thing is,
as if you show up and say, I am uh
a uh, well, we'll take a We'll take a recent example.
(09:09):
I used Johnson. I'm a woman here in this in
this situation, i have a vagina and every day, for
fifty years I've been using Johnson and Johnson's baby powder
on my vaginal region. And as a result, I have
ovarian cancer and the doctors have said, yeah, Calcoulm powder
is really bad for you. Johnson and Johnson's known as forever,
(09:29):
but they just didn't tell anybody. Um, So I want
to sue Johnson and Johnson and the legal offices that
I walk into and say this too. The first of all,
the lawyer is gonna jump up and click as heels
and then say I'm very sorry that this is happening
to you. But the lawyer will probably think, you know,
there's a lot of people who use Johnson's and Johnson
(09:50):
and Johnson's baby powder. I wonder if there's anybody else
like you. Will start to do research, and all of
a sudden, your one lawsuit is going to include a
lot more people and will probably become s defy as
a class action lawsuit. But you, the person who initially
filed this, will remain that representative plain if Yeah, boy,
I gotta say that that story had a lot of
(10:10):
emotional peaks and valleys. Thank you. I'm doing much better now,
by the way. Good. I'm glad the uh and you
know it does usually but not always, because there are
also cases like in Ron, which we'll talk a little
bit about but a lot of times it involves product liability. UM.
When bridge Stone Firestone had stuff going on there in
(10:34):
the early nineteen nineties and I guess for a decade,
the US came down and the judge said, from anyone
who had car owned or least one through two thousand
one Piotoford explorer during those years, then you are part
of this class. They call that the class, and then
(10:55):
uh the attorney who represents that class, and we'll talk
about how they get selected. They are many times referred
to as class council, which sounds very much like some
middle school title that you would run for or something.
But whenever we say class council, just think that's the
attorney representing all these people, right class. Yeah, so you
(11:17):
want to take a break and then talk a little
bit about the history of this stuff. Yeah, let's do it. Okay, stop,
(11:38):
you know, stop stop? Shouldn't you know? You stop? You know?
Stop stop? Shouldn't you know? So? Chucky said that class
action lawsuits are are a type of civil law right
which is not criminal law. But even more specifically than that, UM,
(12:01):
because they're a part of civil law, they're actually based
on common law, which is the legal body that's been
formed over the centuries, starting in England and even further
back than that. It turns out the Vikings are really
the first court that was ever set up in Europe.
Um that they actually started a lot of the legal
(12:21):
precedent that made its way over to England, that in
turn made its way over to America. So helmet tip
to the Vikings for all that. But um, the common
law is like the sum of all the judicial decisions
made over those centuries that set precedent, that was built
on and expanded on and refined. That's common law, and
(12:44):
common law um is the basis of originally of hearing
um these kinds of cases which are class action lawsuits. Yeah,
and these they didn't call them class action suits in eleven,
but they had them. And it wasn't, you know, thousands
of people against a tire company. It was a few people.
(13:06):
But uh, in England they allowed a handful of people
to get together occasionally in the in the village. And
you know, maybe I'm not sure. I didn't really find
why exactly they did this. Initially, My guests would just
be efficiency of the court maybe early on um, which
is sort of how it still is in a lot
(13:27):
of ways. Rather than trying thousands of cases or even
hundreds of thousands of cases, you can just get everyone
together in one room, and that's what they did in England.
They allowed a few people to file a single complaint
against the court. And this kind of carried over over
the years, eventually into Colonial America, along with some other
stuff dealing with law. Like like you said, a lot
(13:50):
of it sort of some didn't stick, some did, Yeah, no.
And there's like a period apparently from about the middle
of the UM I guess about the off teen hundreds
and the fourteen hundreds to the middle of the nineteenth
century where this just kind of went away in England,
but it persisted in Colonial America UM and then carried
(14:10):
on and then went back to England, UH and found
purchase in about the middle of the nineteenth century in
England's equity courts, which is a specific kind of court.
It's now part of regular civil court now, but for
a little while it was its own thing where if say, like, um,
you hired a tin smith to make a gravy boat
(14:30):
for you in like seventeen fifty eight, UM, you you
would take that guy to civil court if he if
he gave you one that was like, you know, only
half of a gravy boat. You couldn't hold gravy in it.
So what are you gonna do with this thing? Um,
it's totally useless. So you take the tin smith to court, Well,
you would probably expect money for damages, the money that
(14:53):
you gave him return to you. Civil court would handle that.
If you wanted to say, make the tin smith finish
the job, to complete this this gravy boat, then you
would probably take him to equity court. Equity court was
court that had to do with everything except monetary damages
or criminal court. It was the creative kind of court
(15:14):
where it really kind of called on to judge's um,
fairness and imagination to solve whatever problem was brought before it.
And this these equity courts, like we said, like I said, um,
we're we're eventually fused into regular civil court. But they
are where our understanding, like the modern understanding of class
(15:35):
action lawsuits were born. I get some of the eighteenth
century gravy man. I love gravy. I don't care what
century is from. It's a good band name too. So
the problem with equity courts, even early on is that
there was really no um kind of codified procedure for everything,
especially as these cases got bigger and bigger. Uh, as
(15:57):
far as people grouping up, there was no standard procedure.
And one of the biggest challenges with that, our guess
biggest controversies was whether or not people that weren't a
part of that case technically, um, but we're still a
part of it because they had the wagon wheel made
by the the local town smith that was faulty, whether
(16:19):
or not they signed up or not for that case,
whether they were bound by that decision. And it's a
little counter intoive to think about that, like who cares
if if Goody Smith isn't a part of this case,
maybe he doesn't care that his wagon wheel is faulty
or not. But what this does, if you look at
(16:40):
it on the other side, is Goody Smith can't like,
once they settle this thing, Goody Smith can't come along
and then say, well, I want to see you separately.
So then Goody Smith couldn't come come around later, or
I guess until they changed it, he could come around
later and sue again. But they had to work all
this out. They were like, that's not fair. You can't
have this big civil case, have someone technically be a
(17:01):
part of it but not assigned to it, and then
later on try and get their own separate damages. Right So,
but but I mean that's I think how it was
for a good almost a century, a little over a century,
where you could say, like, I didn't have anything to
do with this thing. Goody by the way, short for
good wife. So it's like Mrs Smith, well, I was
(17:22):
just kidding around anyway. So um yeah, but like the
the the ninth grade crucible reader in me could not
just let that pass. Remember that play? I do? I
love it? Um. So the thing is like for a
good century, like if you if even if you were
considered somebody who would be a member of that class,
(17:43):
if you hadn't signed onto this lawsuit, you could come
back around and say I didn't have anything to do
with that, like I want to sue you myself. And
that did kind of make things unwieldy because one of
the purposes nowadays for filing a class action lawsuit, at
least as are as like the defendant, like say the
big corporation is concerned, is to just settle this once
(18:04):
and for all, and so Eventually they came up with
something called Rule forty eight, which UM started to kind
of um include. It was like the birth of the
rules for class action lawsuits UM and Rule forty eight
morphed into Rule twenty three, Rule twenty three. Eventually nineteen
(18:25):
sixty six said you know what, We're just going to
say this, if you qualify as a member of a
class action class, even if you have nothing to do
with this, if you don't sign on, you're considered bound
to the decision, which means if you, if like the
people suing these people lose, you can't go back and
(18:46):
and sue them again and try yourself. You're bound by
that decision. And in nineteen sixty six they said, well,
how are we going to do this? And they said, well,
we need to just notify people, give people the option
to say I don't want to have anything to do
with the suit because I do want to see these
people on my own. And as long as you've give
them that option, the whole thing seemed pretty fair. Yeah.
(19:06):
Ninety seven was when the Supreme Court first adopted these
rules of civil procedure and the beginnings of Rule twenty three.
And this is when they sort of just dissolved a
lot of the separation between the law courts and equity courts.
But it was until sixty six that they finally realized
that was an issue. And they also, I mean, it's
a pretty um, it's a pretty dense thing Rule twenty three.
(19:29):
That was a lot that went on, and then that
was admitted again in two thousand five with the Class
Action Fairness Act, which among other things, said that, um,
you know, if it's over five million bucks, then this
has gotta go to federal court, federal district court because
that's too much money. Um. Another one of the things
from the Fairness Act of two thousand five is it
(19:51):
laid out some other criteria aside from the five million bucks. Um.
It said that any case involving planeiffs or of defendants
from like a bunch of ferent states. So if it's
like all across the country basically, and they call that
diversity jurisdiction, then the federal court can actually, uh, it
has to go to federal court under that case, right.
And then also if it's a hundred people are over it,
(20:14):
typically a hundred hundred plaintiffs are over it typically goes
to federal court. And I get the impression federal courts
is basically like, we're a little more equipped for this,
this the complexities and intricacies of a class action lawsuit.
That's the impression I have to you. Yeah, I mean,
I think they're just set up for it. Um. I
(20:38):
imagine it would be tough for a state court to
handle a case like Firestone Bridge Stone with that many
hundreds of thousands of people, maybe even millions. I don't
know how many eventual plaintiffs there were, but that's a
lot of tires. So I think that's true. But I
also feel like this whole thing smacks of federal courts
just basically being like, you know, let's just admit it.
(20:59):
That's state courts are run by hay seeds and yokels.
That's what it smells like to me. There's definitely the
undercurrent rules state court rules, that's right. So, um that
Rule twenty three, which again is very dense, as you said,
but it's also ominous sounding if you ask me, Rule
(21:20):
twenty three sounds like it's gonna mess you up pretty good. Um.
But it's basically the body of understanding for class action
lawsuits that's been established, you know, since the thirties up
to two thousand five with the Class Action Fairness Act,
like you were saying, and if you read it, you
can basically get a pretty good idea of what has
(21:40):
to happen for a class action lawsuit to go forward. Um.
Apparently each state has its own rules, but as far
as the federal districts are concerned, UM rule twenty three
is is it? And the first thing you have to
do is you have to become certified as a class
like your your lawsuit has to go from it's is
me suing you know, um, Exxon for the oil spill. Two.
(22:06):
I've got all these other neighbors and cannary owners around
here who are all affected by this oil spill. Um,
and we think we we have a good case against Exxon.
And very importantly, we all have the same kind of harm.
We have a common complaint, which is Exon spilled a
bunch of oil, messed up our livelihood and our lives um.
(22:28):
And we all you know, because we all have the
same kind of case. The defense Exxon could mount the
same defense against all of these complaints, so we would
probably be certified as as a class. Yeah, Like you know,
the common defense in the case of like Aaron Brockovich
that movie. I can't remember the name of the company
that was a defendant, but who wasn't Pacific Gas and Electricity,
(22:53):
the one who keeps setting off wildfires out in California.
So they couldn't then have a defense. Um, one defense
against like a certain number of people and are certain
kind of person in town, Let's say it's probably more applicable,
and then another for another kind of person in town.
They had to mount a common defense. It's basically, I
think all about equity, are making things equitable among kind
(23:18):
of for both sides. Yeah, which I thought was pretty interesting. Um,
and only you know, you have to get certified, and
only of lawsuits that are filed a class action even
get certification to begin with. Yeah, and the reason that
was lower than I thought, but I guess it also
makes sense. Um. What I could not find is this, Chuck,
(23:38):
what happens to the original lawsuit, the original plaintiff if
they're not certified as a class there as a class
action lawsuit, but you can probably just go sue on
your own. And I don't know, I cannot find out
the way that I couldn't find out was the case
that first piqued my interest about that was UM Duke's
(24:00):
versus Walmart. I think it was Dukes that all were
versus Walmart, which turned out to be the biggest class
action class ever created. It consisted of one and a
half million women who had been employed. It's bigger than
the US military, by the way, but they were every
(24:20):
woman who was employed by Walmart UM between I think
uh nine any time after UM and the whole the
whole lawsuit was that Walmart was basically promoting men more
quickly and giving men more resources to advance into management
positions than women. And the idea was that if you
(24:42):
were a woman, you were harmed by this, uh equally.
So it made sense that that that this would get
certified as a class action suit because any woman who
worked for Walmart would have been harmed by not having
the opportunity to advance. But then Walmart argued and said, well,
you know there's no national or company wide policy that
(25:03):
says you can't advance women, you can advance men more quickly.
That all of these advancement decisions are made up of
thousands and thousands of local decisions. So since there were
so many different decisions that affected all these different women.
This class doesn't make sense. And they actually went went
all the ways Supreme Court and Supreme courts at Walmart's right.
This is this doesn't make sense as a class action
(25:26):
suit because all of the harms could have been for
different reasons, carried up at different people. Um. But the
reason that does make sense to have that that certification
clause is because any defendant has a right to defend
themselves against any accusation in court. And so if everybody's
accusing them of the same harm, then it makes sense
(25:47):
of certifying them together as a class. If there's different
harms that aren't quite the same, then the defendant should
be able to defend against that that accusation, that accusation,
that accusation, and you shouldn't lump all those people together
into a whole class. Right. So the judges in charge
of defining the class. Uh, And like we said, it's
gotta you know, it's gotta be specific to the problem. Uh.
(26:11):
At hand, it can't be all Bridgetone tire owners it was,
unless it's all bridge Stone tires. But it's it turned
out it was just this one tire on this one car.
And so you have to really define that like if
you have this car during these years, Uh, then you
are part of this class. And um, from that point
it has the notification that we talked about has to
(26:32):
take place. Whether it's you know, you've seen TV commercials
probably to have this kind of thing. Uh, you see
advertisements in the newspaper, you probably get a mailer. It
depends on how broad it is. Um, they're not gonna
do a TV commercial if they don't need to, because
that costs money obviously, uh. And that's an expense. But
(26:52):
they're gonna notify everyone, uh, pretty in pretty quick order
because what they want is for every do you know
they were a part of this class, that's a part
of that class, and whether or not you want to
opt in or out. Uh. And if you opt out
and you are within the scope of that class, you
can you can do so if you want to. If
it's I'm not sure why anyone for these like kind
(27:15):
of small things that seemed to happen a lot, would
opt out. Uh. I think they probably just count on
people ignoring that kind of thing their check for five
dollars in the mail, but doing anything, Yeah, you can't
opt out if you're I don't know if you're a
person who's just like I don't want my name on
any list, and I don't want to be a part
(27:36):
of any you know, if you're kind of a uh,
paranoid type as far as the government and court cases go,
you may want to opt out just to not be
a part of something so small. Well, the I think
the reason that they included is because if you are
some Let's say you are somebody who um whose house
was washed away by the oil spill at the of
(27:59):
the X on L D s UM. But the class
action lawsuit was everyone who was affected by the oil,
so it would include people whose houses lived or whose
houses were a mile away, whose front yards got covered
in oil. Well, you'd be like, wait a minute, whatever
they're gonna get is nothing like what I need the
damages that I'm seeking, So I'm gonna opt out. Um
(28:21):
And because they can't yeah, and because there's tons of
real reasons to opt out. The five dollar check coming
from the credit card company. Sure, but I'm saying like
they can't differentiate who's who's getting that mailer from who's not,
which is why they put the onus on the person
getting that mailer. Seeing that TV commercial to say, oh,
I need to opt out because I need to sue
(28:42):
them on my own. I can't be part of this
class because when that settlement is reached and they say
everybody's gonna get five dollars for the for the trouble. Um,
that's what you got for your house being washed away,
you know what I mean. Yeah, So then the judge
is actually gonna appoint the council, which is different than
how it usually works. The judge is going to look
(29:03):
at this and say, um, and this is for uh,
I think for defense only, right. I guess the judge
can change the plaintiff, but it's typically the lawyer who
actually files the case. I think it's unusual for the
judge to overrule that unless it's someone who just doesn't
have the responsibility or maybe that kind of background. Sure, yeah,
(29:24):
I mean I think like, if um, somebody walked in
with the Johnson and Johnson complaint in the you know,
the lawyer was just like a local ambulance chaser, they
probably would get replaced with like a larger national firm
that had the resources or the understanding, that had like
contexts and like the um um uh professional um witness field.
(29:46):
As far as like medic medicine and cancer is concerned,
Like that guy just wouldn't have the resources, so he
might be changed. But yeah, I'm guessing it's probably rare.
Um But the point is that the judge has the
ability to who decide who is the lawyer for the
plaintiffs in the class action. Yeah, I think it's probably
(30:07):
more rare because lawyers understand this and they probably wouldn't
file if they knew that they would be replaced, unless
it's just to get it going and they know they're
going to be replaced, Like and what was the breaking
bad's been a better call Saul? When they I think
in like season two or something, when they figure out
that the nursing home is taking advantage of the seniors
(30:28):
overcharging them. Like the first thing that Saul Saul did
was go to the larger firm and say, like, we
need to partner up because he knew he couldn't handle
it himself. That's what I'm guessing happens. Yeah, and then, uh,
I didn't see better call Saul, But that sounds right
to me. Oh you didn't. It's not pretty good. It's
not breaking bad, but it doesn't seek to be breaking bad.
(30:51):
You know what I mean. Yeah, I've heard a lot
of people said, like it better, but I could see
that it's a difference. Um. And then eventually the judge
and again you know if you haven't noticed, and it's
sort of like in the early days, the judge has
a lot of a lot more say in class action
cases than a lot of other kinds of cases, really
making a lot of decisions that they don't get to
(31:12):
decide in other kinds of cases. In this case, one
of the final things they get to decide is the
distribution of damages. And they you know, they use other
people for insight, They develop a plan with people on
their team, but they developed this plan to distribute whatever
monetary damages, if it's you know, three billion dollars, they're
going to figure out how to approve that settlement and
(31:35):
how to distribute that settlement, including this is a very
key thing, as we'll see later, including how much those
attorneys are going to get paid. Right. Um, So you
want to take a break and then come back and
talk about some of the advantages and disadvantages of class
action suits. Yeah, let's do it. Yah, Stop you know stopping?
(32:12):
Shouldn't you know? Stop? You know? Stopping, shouldn't you know? So?
One of the big advantages obviously something we already mentioned, um,
a lot of people. There's power in numbers. A lot
of people is more significant than one person, and a
(32:33):
lot of people pulling their resources is more significant. Lawsuits
cost a lot of money and in many, many cases,
it is not worth it for someone to go after
a company for you know, you kind of just have
to do the math, like how much is this gonna
cost me, what's the potential payout? Is it worth the risk?
Whereas if you can band together with a bunch of
(32:54):
other people, it's a huge, huge advantage, right. One of
the other advantages is um the more people you have,
the more damages are going to be awarded if the
planeiffs win, which means you're going to start attracting increasingly
higher caliber lawyers to your cause who could be your
your class counsel. And the reason why is because in
(33:16):
cases where you're seeking damages, lawyers often don't get paid
unless they win. But if you win, then the lawyers
get a big fat pay day out of it. So
the bigger the class, the better the law firm um
or legal team representing that class is probably going to
be at least more experienced, you know, yeah, for sure.
(33:37):
Another huge advantage is is that you're going to get
your case hurt. If individual cases, they go first come,
first serve. So if an individual brings a big lawsuit
and they win, that company might be out of business
before you can even get your suit going. And if
you're part of a class action lawsuit, it's going to
(33:57):
make sure that everybody gets there p to the pie
basically exactly. So, Um, there's a lot of reasons to
do this. Another another one too, is it makes sense
for um corporations. They have an incentive to try to
settle fairly with a class action suit because it will
handle it will make this big years long, sometimes decade
(34:20):
long problems um go away finally, once and for all. Yeah.
And you know, there's a lot of press that comes
along with a class action suit. Yeah, far more pressed
than than an individual case. So it definitely behooves the
defense to try and get these things wrapped up quickly
because it's just bad news for them. Yeah. And on
(34:40):
the same on the other side of that same coin, Chuck,
like that large amount of press that gets generated by
these big, big cases also kind of keeps corporate mouth
feasans in line, you know, makes the company. It probably
does more than if we didn't have such things as
class action suits. But that's one of the theoret go
buy products about that. Yeah, I got some property to you.
(35:06):
Is it called the Brooklyn Bridge. It's wonderful. So. Um,
there are some problems with class action suits. They're not
the candy land that we've described them as entirely. Um. Instead,
there's there's a lot of um frivolous class action suits
that have been filed over the years, um by lawyers
who are looking to make a fast buck, in part
(35:28):
using that bad press as a threat, like do you
really want this to be you know, to get dragged
out in court, Just go ahead and settle, and you know,
I'm the lawyer. I'll take my big fat cut. Um.
And that's a that's a big problem actually, and that's
a big perceived problem too, that class uh class council
walk away, you know, whistling and laughing all the way
(35:50):
to the bank, while the individual members are just getting
five bucks for their their problems, even though they're the
ones who had the thing befall them in the first place. Yeah. Um.
And also, you know, if you choose. Like, let's use
that exon example. If you get bad legal advice in
your house was destroyed more than other people's property, and
(36:11):
you don't opt out, you can't then say, oh, well,
you know I only got this much. My whole house
was destroyed. I really want to bring a lawsuit again.
You can't do that unless you opt out. So that
is a disadvantage that you that's sort of your one
shot basically at any compensation. Yeah, I think the rule
of thumb is if you didn't even know that this
(36:33):
wrong had befallen you, it's probably not that big of
a deal, and you're not gonna want to opt out
because then that means you have to hire your own
lawyer and go through the trouble of suing somebody, which
is never pleasant or fun. Um. So, like I was saying,
like those those class lawyers are a favorite target of
tort reformists and critics because, um, the the if the
(36:58):
plainiffs win and the judge rules in the plane of favor,
one of the things that judge will do is figure
out what the compensation is for the lawyer. Uh is
going to be a lot of times that comes out
of the settlement right, Like, if everybody gets ten billion dollars,
the judge will say, well, you attorney who led this
case in your law firm and your legal team, you're
(37:18):
gonna get this fee. And I was reading up on it,
and it sounds like it's fairly arbitrary. There's no good
rule of thumb. And in fact, lawyers who represent class actions,
um may actually get a lower percentage fee than they
would if they were representing somebody on an individual basis.
(37:39):
But the thing is, these payouts can be so huge
that even if it's a really small percentage, it's going
to be just this incredibly large amount in real numbers.
And so a lot of people are like that, I
didn't earn that. They didn't they didn't deserve that, especially
when they find out that, you know, a million people
got a coupon for half of a free tire from
(37:59):
Firestone for having deadly tires on their car for ten years. Yeah,
those are and they you know, they tried to um,
they tried to rectify that in part of the the
c a f A. The Class Action Fairness Active two
thousand five. With these coupon settlements, those really rubbed me
the wrong way. Um. It wasn't a class action suit,
(38:20):
but there was something involved. At one point, I was
a season ticket holder for the Atlanta Falcons and I
can't remember what the deal was. Now, it wasn't a
class action suit, but there was something to where they
wronged the season ticket holders in some financial way. Terrible playing. Yeah,
we should have brought the class action suit for the
(38:40):
past thirty five years. Those North Georgia people would join it,
yeah exactly, but they um, they did that coupon thing,
and they were like, well, because of whatever it was,
this upcoming season, you'll season ticket holders will get off
anything from the Falcons merch store. And that just really me.
It's like because they're just you're spending more like the
(39:03):
people that fall for that, or just giving them even
more money. That's a big criticism is that it and
it it establishes or keeps established an ongoing uh commercial
relationship between the person who wronged you and you the
person suing them. Uh. And that is a big criticism.
Some people say a good A good reply to that
(39:24):
is just have cash settlements or UM. You could have
a whole product settlement like UM, rather than you having
a coupon for some percentage off, so you still have
to give them money. They say, we'll give you the
jersey of your choice, free and clear, and you never
have to see us again, or maybe even like from
the NFL dot com stort, it doesn't even have to
be like a foul a falcon's jersey. That's a solution
(39:46):
to that too. But one of the big problems was
lawyers who were representing these coupon cases. Um, they were
taking a percentage of the entire value of the ponds, right,
And so what Kafa in two thousand five or six
sought to change was saying, like, you really shouldn't do
(40:08):
that because a lot of people don't actually redeem that.
So you shouldn't get a percentage of the people's coupons
who are never going to redeem that coupon. You should
get a portion of the coupons that are going to
be redeemed. And that is just as hard. Figuring out
how many coupons are going to be redeemed is as
hard as it sounds from what I understand. Yeah, and
(40:29):
this there's one case in two thousand thirteen that you
sent over that was pretty interesting. There was a teenager.
His name was that guy who measured his subway sandwich
his foot long. We he was Australian, so say it
in Australian. He was that guy. Uh, And he measured
his foot long and it was only eleven inches long,
(40:50):
and he took it to attorney Jackie Childs, and then
Jackie Childs didn't take the case, and so the kid
went away. And then another kid measured his sandwich and
his name was well actually, and he actually got this
thing taken to court because he didn't have a twelve
inch sub on his from his subway sandwich. It it
(41:11):
baked up a little bit short, yes, and that was
an actual case. Of course, I'm getting around about those names.
But um, although I wish I wasn't. Uh, the attorneys there,
we're gonna get over a half a million dollars in
fees for what ended up being no pay out whatsoever,
just Subway saying we'll we'll make these things bake up
(41:34):
to twelve inches. Now, well, Subway even said we can't
guarantee that we cannot. They're like bread doesn't bake in
exactly the same way. It's just that's not how it works.
And the court eve intended to agree with that. But
the point was no one was going to get anything,
not even like a six inch sub nothing a free inch. Yeah,
not even a free inch. You're just going to get
(41:56):
you know, Subway will stay in business. But these lawyers
were going to get a half a million dollars and
the judges like, you know, I forget this, We're just
gonna dismiss this entire case. That's right. Jackie Childs was
very disappointed. There was also a similar um a similar
one when when the Center for Science and the Public
interests hire some lawyers to sue Coca Cola, who owned
(42:16):
Vitamin Water at the time. Envitamin Water used to have
this hilarious ad campaign where it promised all these ridiculous
health benefits that any reasonable person knew were not true,
and they were suing for that. They were actually suing
because vitamin water didn't disclose how much sugar it had
in it um. Even though it was ridiculous health claims,
(42:37):
it was still kind of purporting to be healthy, and
these the Center for the Science and the Public Interest
was like, this is not healthy at all, and so
they sued. Coca Cola didn't do anything but stopped I
think advertising the way that they were. But those lawyers
still got two point seven three million dollars in fees,
even though no one else got anything of sugar and
(42:59):
vitamin water. Yeah, I believe crazy tastes delicious. I don't.
I don't. I didn't know it head sugar in it.
That's I'm offended. That's why they got sued. Uh. And
you know, there have been some very famous civil class
action suits over the years. The largest ever obviously where
the tobacco settlements, and that was by tenfold next to
(43:22):
the second highest one, tobacco settlements. And I don't think
it's over yet even UM two hundred and six billion
dollars so far from that decision. Forty six states. Uh.
The attorney generals from forty states were involved. UH. And
they obviously couldn't pay that out all at once, but
what they were ordered to do was UM pay out
(43:43):
for medical costs for smoking related illness over the course
of twenty five years UM. The next highest was the
BP spill for twenty billion. Volkswagen comes in at number
three with fourteen point seven billion, and that one was
pretty significant and that it wasn't a coupon payout, it
was it was a pretty good restitution. I think in
(44:05):
that they said, you know what, we will actually buy
back We'll fix your car for nothing, or we will
buy back your car or d your lease with no penalty.
And this is when Volkswagen cheated the software to try
and cheat US emissions tests so wrong, it was a
big scandal. Um, there's plenty of there are still like
(44:26):
unfolding as we speak, like the Johnson and Johnson Malcolm
powder one UM. If you watch Sveengoli or anything else
on ME TV, you're probably well well versed in UM,
the Boy Scout of America UM sex abuse case that's ongoing.
Apparently brother was one of the first plaintiffs in that case.
(44:46):
Oh I think I remember you talking about that. Yeah.
Now there's like seventy thousand members of that class and growing. UM.
And then there's if you've ever heard that ad for
MEZO book, that's actually a MESO theely ooma guide that
you will get sent to you by the lawyer of
that class action UM settlement who's still looking for plaintiffs
(45:10):
UM from against the asbestos manufacturers. So there's still plenty
on going. Like now that we've talked about this, it'll
be like that bider mine Hoff thing, well you you'll
see class action ads on TV all the time, now, yeah,
I mean there in Ron was a big one. Remember
Finn Finn the diet drug, That was a big one.
That was a three point eight billion dollar payout. UM
(45:34):
the silicon breast implants, that was a big payout. Yes,
But that one, from what I understand, was total bs.
It was it was based on medical hysteria, and later
science backed up the company's claims that they had nothing
to do with. I think it was connective tissue disorder UM.
The science. Nobody was carrying out the science. It was
(45:54):
all basically paid testimony for the plaintiffs UM, who were
not necessarily even scientists. And the on the other side.
Nobody had any science. And then science came later on,
but it was after this settlement had been reached for
billions of dollars. That was a bit of a scam.
It turns out. Did they get it back? I don't.
I don't think so. Probably not. That's not how it works.
(46:16):
I don't think so. Section suit, right, yeah, it's millions
of people. You got anything else? I got nothing else?
All right, Well, if you want to know more about
class action lawsuits, just watch me TV. Uh. And since
I said that, it's time for a listener mail. Hey guys,
(46:40):
this is another coincidence email, and this one. You know,
we eat a lot of these, like, Hey, I was
listening to the show and there was a tornado near
me or whatever on tornadoes, but I thought this one
was special. Hey, guys, I was listening to the Fort
Knox episode. In the listener letter about wetlands and having
to be happening to be at a wetland, I might
share I've had two very random coincidental things. A few
(47:03):
years back. I was driving into the small town into
a small town in southwest Colorado where I live, and
one of you mentioned a penny farthing. Uh. If you
don't know what a penny farthing is, dear listener, is
the bicycle with that giant, giant front wheel and the
tiny little back wheel from the what I mean with
those nineteenth century I guess yeah, early the two. Um,
(47:27):
I glanced over to the bike lane, and sure enough,
there was a guy riding a penny fark thing. That
is that is the most amazing thing I've heard in
a long time. I've never seen one in real life,
even I don't think I have. I think I've seen
like an antique in the store or something like that,
but I've never seen somebody riding. Although this would not
be nearly as amazing if the person turns out to
(47:48):
be writing from Brooklyn, because I'm sure that's a pretty
common sight from Brooklyn to Colorado would be something else. Yeah,
I guess. But one of the chances this guy's listening
to that, that's amazing thing. That's it is astounding. And
why were we even talking about Penny Farthings in the
first place. You know, it's a good word. Uh. It
was the first time I had seen one of those
(48:08):
in that town I've lived in for twenty five years.
Next was this summer, after dropping off some clients to
put on your episode about ice climbing, just as I
was driving out of town, Uh, to a to a
mecca destination for ice climbers around the world. It's a
little less impressive. Yeah, And that is from Sean and
(48:29):
until you ride Colorado. Very nice, Sean, Thank you for
the first anecdote, the second one, thanks for nothing. If
you want to get in touch with this like Sean did,
and tell us your best anecdote, we want to hear it. Um.
You can get in touch with this via email at
stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should
(48:51):
Know is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts
for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
Show Links
AboutOrder Our BookStoreSYSK ArmyRSSPopular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.