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Comment by ErikVandeWater | Hacker News Reader

What should be done is change laws around class action lawsuits so lawyers representing the public are incentivized to get higher payouts instead of settling early and taking a huge cut. That would solve a lot more problems without requiring an expanded role for a regulatory agency that is subject to regulatory capture.

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While I'm not opposed to changes to laws surrounding class action lawsuits, it seems inadvisable for a society's plan A to require waiting for babies to get poisoned or starve to death before it can take action.

Of course you could argue that the threat of meaningful class action is a check against it happening in the first place, but profits from illegal activities are quarterly and the punishment will be a decade away. If anything is consistent in the US, its that we can't rely on enough executives to act morally or with long-term interests in mind when their compensation hinges on them not doing so.

A big problem is that many of the big class actions are on shaky ground and it’s actually advantageous to settle rather than go through the motions and lose. After all, the company is offering you $100M not because they’re wrong, but just to get you to go away. Why not take it rather than risk losing it all?

Not all class actions are like that, but a lot are.

The United States desperately needs loser pays[1] to make it worthwhile to fight frivolous lawsuits, particularly class actions.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_rule_%28attorney%27s_f...

That would simply ensure that class actions almost completely cease to exist. And poor people (by which I mean anybody with less means than your average mega-corp) don’t have access to civil remedies in the US.

They would sure decrease in frequency (which is the whole point), but they would not disappear: if the legal case is good, the law companies would still take them on contingency. If the law company thinks their case is so weak that they might end up paying the defendant’a cost, good.

If the chance of winning at trial is, say, 75%, It’s extremely likely the suit will be backed by investors, since if you back hundreds of suits, the impact of being unlucky goes away.

There are many hedge funds, public equity firms etc. with easily as many resources as an average mega-corp.

In addition to what alistairSH said, the US already has remedies for lawyer fees. If the judge feels your lawsuit is frivolous, they can award “fees” in addition to damages to the other party.

Which is an insanely high bar.

It’s extremely rare for this to happen.

In civil suits US courts really, really want you to settle early.

Note that the strains found at the plant do not match anything that was found infecting babies. The probable consumer injury here is zero.

Yeah; there should be a floor on settlements of statutory fines + 1.5x damages being paid out to each member of the class, with money set asside assuming 100% claim rate.

Excess money would go to a relevant non-profit of a judge's choosing.

In most class action lawsuits, the actual damages are a total guess and almost impossible to quantify in any legally consistent manner. Pick a number.

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