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Comment by burningChrome | Hacker News Reader

This is always my frustration with class action lawsuits. The people who've been affected by the company never get anything of value. Its always the attorney's and state that started the suits that make all the money.

The worst was back in the day when Chevy used some bogus primer for their trucks. They refused to say it was their fault owners paint was coming off their trucks sans any rust. A class action was started and then over the course of several years, the government and owners finally won.

What did the owners get? Coupons for $100 off a paint job at the local Chevy dealer.

So not only did the owners not get anything to help them fix their problems, they were forwarded to a local dealership where the dealership could then take advantage of them again and charge them thousands of dollars and essentially make all the money back they were paying the attorney's and government.

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Much of the time the actual harm to individuals is fairly small, but there are so many that the aggregate harm is hard to ignore.

It's a quandary. You can ignore it, but that encourages criminal behavior. Or you can pursue it, but proving your case beyond a reasonable doubt is time consuming and difficult. Often, there is no money to pay the lawyers in advance, so they expect to be compensated for the risk of getting nothing.

If the lawyers worked for free you might get double or triple the settlement, but it's hardly better to get $300 off a paint job than $100. The cash equivalent is probably only $30.

I'm not in that class, but I think that (like any other case) cash is the right way to settle, in the absence of a mutual agreement to the contrary. The beneficiaries didn't get to bargain for a voucher, and shouldn't have to go to the dealer in order to be made whole.

The only thing that seems fair to me is if the settlement is held in trust and disbursed with minimum friction to anyone eligible. If Chevy wants to give those people a $100 voucher for thirty bucks if they show their eligibility for the action then go ahead!

> proving your case beyond a reasonable doubt is time consuming and difficult

Civil cases aren’t generally required to be decided beyond a reasonable doubt but merely with a preponderance of the evidence. It’s more that court in general is often time consuming and difficult.

> they expect to be compensated for the risk of getting nothing

It depends on the lawyer and the case, e.g. most class action suits the lawyers charge nothing up front but take a cut of the damages.

The problem in large class settlements is the “damages” awarded per capita are often a trifle compared to a similar situation with a smaller set of plaintiffs.

Look at the award from Equifax data breach settlement… The CFPB fine was about $0.66 per person. The class action award averages to about $2 per person.

Could your bank plaster your personal info on a billboard for two years, but make it up to you with a nice paper cup of coffee? (How would you even prove damages?!?). Don’t get your hopes up — that coffee would be too expensive…

Would $1000 be fair for you? Multiply that by 150 million…

Same with the airbag recalls.

The problem is worse than lawyers’ cuts… Proper restitution isn’t even possible (orders of magnitude greater than company’s assets).

At the individual level, a $10k automobile can do far more damage to people and property than just $10k…

But, As a society, we often fail to punish companies that do more harm than good.

>If the lawyers worked for free you might get double or triple the settlement, but it's hardly better to get $300 off a paint job than $100. The cash equivalent is probably only $30.

No, the cash equivalent is probably $-200 or so.

The problem is that the individuals affected didn't get anything of value. They got a $100 off coupon at the dealership for a paint job there. Which means the dealership is just going to inflate the price by at least that much, and dealerships are already known to have higher prices than competing businesses anyway.

If they had gotten a $100 voucher for a paint job at any paint business, or better yet a $100 check to spend as they wish, then this would have cost GM something at least. But instead, they stood to profit from the "payout".

If you have damages that are worth more, then you can excuse yourself from the class and sue them individually.

What if your damages aren't worth the expense of suing them.

> What if your damages aren't worth the expense of suing them.

That’s what small claims court is for.

You don't think hiring lawyers to successfully sue a megacorp ends up costing you more than $10k?

Depending on the lawyer’s anticipated likelihood of winning it can be free.

Let me get this straight, you're saying I should take a megacorp to small claims court because lawyers that will inevitably end up costing >$10k might take my case for free if the case is strong enough? Does that logic make any sense to you?

I’m not suggesting that you do anything. I’m just pointing out that, for example, people sue insurance companies every day, for free and win.

Many small claims courts don’t allow lawyers.

I wish this were true. IANAL, I just play one, but for example, in Illinois, anything under $15K is Small Claims, but only those below $1500 are lawyer-free. And if you're suing a corp I don't think that applies -- the law generally says a corp can't defend itself and must be represented by a lawyer in all occasions.

I absolutely agree with you. However, living in Illinois I received a $397 dollar check. I had to go look it up to make sure I got the number right. On one hand, a massive chunk of the $650 million went to the lawyers. But $397 for each user, when over a million signed on to the lawsuit is pretty significant.

I don't know how the payments were calculated, but most of my friends received >$700 checks, and I think I got $600 from the Google one.

I got an $0.11 payout from a Google class action the other day :(

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