Hacker News Reader

This easily could have been an issue raised during a Democratic majority congress and passed with the same story. After all, everybody hates lawyers that get rich while class members get a coupon.

It's not about the issue.

View on HN

You may complain that class-action lawyers get much more money than the plaintiffs, but that's the nature of class actions. They are meant for situations where many indiviuals are harmed, but each harm is too small to justify the cost of a court case. So naturally the plaintiffs get small payouts: each of them suffered a small damage. And the lawyers get big payouts: they handled the paperwork of thousands of clients.

> They are meant for situations where many indiviuals are harmed, but each harm is too small to justify the cost of a court case.

Don't they also get used for cases where (spitballing here) half a town gets cancer because the chemical plant in the area has been illegal dumping their effluents next door?

Those cancer victims aren't getting coupons

I wasn't actually saying class actions are bad, but that it makes a workable political excuse.

Democrats passed the law that created the agency Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com