Man Bites Dog: Trial Lawyers Profit More Than Class Action Plaintiffs
August 6, 2009
The Associated Press has a wonderful article about the aftereffects of the Ford Explorer class action settlement from 2007. As a part of the settlement, the article states, “Ford customers could receive a $500 discount coupon toward the purchase of a new SUV or a $300 coupon to buy another Ford vehicle. Consumers had until April 29, 2008 to apply for the coupons.”
But a funny thing happened on the way to the dealership: people didn’t turn in the coupons. Only 75 were returned - for a total of $37,500.
Why should anyone be surprised? After all, if you had a bad accident in an Explorer and you believed the Explorer caused it, you might not want to run out and buy an Explorer.
As the article stated, “Everyone seemingly got some tangible benefit - except for nearly all of the 1 million consumers covered by the class action lawsuit filed in their name.”
Why should anyone be surprised? Well, some people claimed to be surprised:
“‘Class counsel were surprised and, of course, disappointed by the low redemption rate which undoubtedly was affected by the near-collapse of the economy just as the period to redeem vouchers began,” the lawyers said.’”
But the solution isn’t to try to force people to buy another vehicle of the same type that people don’t want. It’s not to make it easy to bring these cases in the first place.
As the article noted, “The reality is that class members are almost totally irrelevant and the lawyers are in charge,” said McGeorge Law School professor John Sims who worked for Nader’s Public Citizen Litigation Group.
For once, I agree with the Naderites.
Posted by Dan Pero in the categories: Trial Lawyers
One Response to “Man Bites Dog: Trial Lawyers Profit More Than Class Action Plaintiffs”
[...] of common sense to keep people from having false perceptions of trial lawyers. As I blogged about today, the Washington Post only woke up to the reality this week that many trial lawyers are profiteers, [...]