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Comment by wombat-man | Hacker News Reader

Don't they still need to win to get paid?

They're purchasing lottery tickets that are mostly paid for by tax payers who fund the court systems.

There should be publicly available data about how expensive class action lawsuits are to the court.

I would personally categorize it as as subsidized not paid for since the lawyers get nothing if they fail which is a meaningful cost.

None of this is to say I support the current system. Class action lawsuits are now designed to get settlements that save the company targeted millions or more compared to the actual damage agreed to.

And giving the lawyers millions when each litigant is lucky to get $20 is not reasonable.

The only direct costs to the taxpayers in these kinds of lawsuits are the judge's time (also the bailiff's, stenographer's, and a couple more), a slight extra load on the computer system to handle the filings, and miscellaneous wear and tear on the courtroom.

That would make sense if we had infinite courts and judges, but we don't. You waiting longer for your trial date is a significant cost (justice delayed is justice denied, and all that). A jury's time is a cost. A system that enriches a select few while the rest of us get $20 off our next purchase of XYZ product is a cost. The only people receiving a major benefit aren't even the people affected by the wrongdoing.

- “Purchasing”: The attorneys that are taking these cases for $0 in the hopes that they’ll get n% of $SETTLEMENT

- “paid for by tax payers who fund the court systems”. The alternative would mean taking away the right of private citizens to sue.

I mean, I think you understand what I'm saying. They're externalizing the costs and internalizing the benefits. The same thing we complain about with numerous other industries.

The alternative would not be to take away the right of private citizens to sue. There is, surprisingly enough, quite a chasm between identifying that some parties are taking advantage of a system and completely shutting that system down.

It sounds like you’re proposing that individuals should have to pay court costs, in full so that the “taxpayer” doesn’t have to pay the bill

As a wise man once said:

> "There is, surprisingly enough, quite a chasm between identifying that some parties are taking advantage of a system and completely shutting that system down."

You repeating vague claims over and over is not clarifying your point at all.

You stated "The alternative would mean taking away the right of private citizens to sue".

I stated that there is a large range of possibilities between the existing system and taking away a right to sue.

You then repeated your earlier statement, in a slightly different form, so I just repeated mine.

You keep going on about "individuals" when I'm clearly talking about trial lawyers looking to get rich, while we get $5 off our next meal at Taco Bell.

How do they externalize the cost? Who is paying them? The plaintiff class-action firm pays their own costs and hopes get reimbursed when the case is resolved.

Courts aren't free. Juries involve real humans.

Those costs are relatively minimal, courts do charge fees (though I don't know how well that covers the court's expenses), and few class action suits go to trial - they are settled or dismissed beforehand.

Personally, I had to spend almost a week sitting in a jury pool at the courthouse. I lost about $1k in pay which was rather significant for me at the time. The lawyers did end up settling out of court though, and made $xx millions. So I guess it was all worth it in the end...

Tax payers strictly pay for the judges' and other court personnel's salaries. The vast, vast, vast majority of the cost of any civil suit is paid for by the parties to the suit.

aren't the court systems pretty self-funding?

No. The case can be settled out of court. This doesn't necessarily mean lawsuits are misleading or terrible as measures.

Winning one and losing five is in their favor.

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