3 ms·

Has a class action suit ever benefited anyone except the lawyers handling the case? Yes, this is a genuine question. In every case I've seen, the payout for th

Has a class action suit ever benefited anyone except the lawyers handling the case? Yes, this is a genuine question. In every case I've seen, the payout for the class members has been too low to even bother getting it paid out - but perhaps there are exceptions?

lmilcin 5y ago
The point of this is to teach the company good behavior. Any case has more goals than restitution to the victim. And I think it is actually good lawyers get well paid here. They are representing public interest and fighting large organization. That's hardly something you or I can do, even assuming you had time to put your life on hold to fight Apple over broken LCD. In a class action like that usually, if it is won, judge orders the company to right the wrong, depending on some estimate of culpability. If they just made an honest mistake they would probably be punished much less than if they did it knowingly. A lot of times it is difficult to show they knowingly deceived customers and that's why you might see those seemingly unfair payouts.
- alpaca128 5y ago
  > The point of this is to teach the company good behavior Apple seems to have learning difficulties then.
  - lmilcin 5y ago
    Well, it is not perfect system. Scale of Apple is such that these actions are probably just calculated risk for them. It is probably cheaper for them to absorb these than improve r&d and production and pay in delaying product launch. And it seems the market is quite inflexible - most people seem to absolutely have to buy it even if it breaks if you look the wrong way at it. Normally repeated class actions should discourage customers, but Apple seems immune to it. Though I would like to see honest numbers of how many units are affected with which fault, then compare to competition. Maybe it is just the case that Apple customers are louder with their demands because the loss was more financially painful to them.
  - rjzzleep 5y ago
    People like to think that influencing bad behaviour has to happen bottom up. And while that "may" be true, it's only true, because the people that are actually responsible for enforcing proper rules and protecting the consumers are lazy, slow, or corrupt or all three at once. It's like the old debate of who's responsible for forcing change on plastic production. The consumer buying veggies or the regulators? It's clearly the regulators and companies, even though people like to blame the consumer for not making the right choice. It's how we justify the bad actors behaviour, just because they're more powerful and we want to rationalize it somehow.
a_humean 5y ago
I feel like Europe and the UK tends to have a better approach to these things. We don't leave it to private litigation with class action lawsuits to enforce consumer protection standards, but instead we have various regulators both locally and nationally that can fine and force remedial action. We also have statutory warranties that set certain standards about the lifetime of goods - often times going beyond the advertised warranties of the manufacturer. In the UK one concern is a lot of trading standards offices have been gutted locally over the past 10 years due to austerity cuts hitting local councils hardest meaning consumers have some difficulty getting action without going to court when it concerns local businesses. Actually going to court is an act of last resort for exceptional cases or when a regulator fails in their duties (and even then regulators have their own regulators, ombudsman, often times for escalating complaints).
pfranz 5y ago
I'm not sure if they were part of the settlement from a class action suit, but often I've seen recall/repair programs and extended warranties instead of the coupons or meager checks I often see from class action cases. It sucks that even the extended warranty period will expire and your screen/keyboard/battery might just break again, but it gives me an opportunity to repair it and decide if I want to continue using it for the next few years.
krisoft 5y ago
I think one did benefit me, although indirectly. This is an old old story. I had a macbook which suddenly developed a GPU problem. The computer was so old that it was way out of waranty, but I learned that apple is voluntarily offering to fix computers with this specific problem even if they are out of warranty. My belief is that this program was born out of a class-action suit. (Though I am unable to find proof of that right now.) Basically, if i remember it right, the lawsuit forced apple to admit that this is indeed a manufacturing defect and thus I got my GPU fixed for free.
- okamiueru 5y ago
  How old was the product at that time?
  - pfranz 5y ago
    I only read about it when it was happening. From Googling around this seems to be a rough timeline: some 2011 Macbook Pros were affected, lawsuit filed Oct 2014[1], February 2015 Apple launches a repair program, May 2017 it seems to end that program[2]. The last public update I see about the lawsuit is from January 2015 [3]--at least, I think. I really hate websites that don't date their posts. I imagine the suit was dropped when the repair program was negotiated. The source of the issue seems to have been lead-free solder, which was adopted in the mid-2000s and seemed to cause problems for a decade or so. [1] https://9to5mac.com/2014/10/28/apple-class-action-lawsuit-2011-macbook-pro-gpu-graphics-issues/ https://9to5mac.com/2014/10/28/apple-class-action-lawsuit-20... [2] https://www.cultofmac.com/482762/apple-no-longer-repairing-2011-macbook-pros-faulty-gpus/ https://www.cultofmac.com/482762/apple-no-longer-repairing-2... [3] https://www.whitfieldbryson.com/news/tag/macbook-pro/ https://www.whitfieldbryson.com/news/tag/macbook-pro/
TAForObvReasons 5y ago
The threat of a class action lawsuit was enough for Nintendo to proactively offer free joy-con replacements/repairs in the US for stick drift.
CJefferson 5y ago
Go and watch the film "Erin Brockovich". It's (in my, and many people's opinion) a good film, and people involved say it's fairly accurate. To me it shows what class actions are for -- a serious pollution incident which effected many people, but required a huge court case against a huge company to deal with. Many people recieved 6 figure sums, enough to move away and pay for medical care. It isn't a prefect story -- PG&E should have arguably paid even more, given the fact they basically poisoned an entire town, and knew about it for years.
traveler01 5y ago
Hopefuly will benefict the users too. Apple has been charging a lot to fix an issue created by a design defect.

lmilcin 5y ago

The point of this is to teach the company good behavior. Any case has more goals than restitution to the victim. And I think it is actually good lawyers get well paid here. They are representing public interest and fighting large organization. That's hardly something you or I can do, even assuming you had time to put your life on hold to fight Apple over broken LCD. In a class action like that usually, if it is won, judge orders the company to right the wrong, depending on some estimate of culpability. If they just made an honest mistake they would probably be punished much less than if they did it knowingly. A lot of times it is difficult to show they knowingly deceived customers and that's why you might see those seemingly unfair payouts.

alpaca128 5y ago
> The point of this is to teach the company good behavior Apple seems to have learning difficulties then.
- lmilcin 5y ago
  Well, it is not perfect system. Scale of Apple is such that these actions are probably just calculated risk for them. It is probably cheaper for them to absorb these than improve r&d and production and pay in delaying product launch. And it seems the market is quite inflexible - most people seem to absolutely have to buy it even if it breaks if you look the wrong way at it. Normally repeated class actions should discourage customers, but Apple seems immune to it. Though I would like to see honest numbers of how many units are affected with which fault, then compare to competition. Maybe it is just the case that Apple customers are louder with their demands because the loss was more financially painful to them.
- rjzzleep 5y ago
  People like to think that influencing bad behaviour has to happen bottom up. And while that "may" be true, it's only true, because the people that are actually responsible for enforcing proper rules and protecting the consumers are lazy, slow, or corrupt or all three at once. It's like the old debate of who's responsible for forcing change on plastic production. The consumer buying veggies or the regulators? It's clearly the regulators and companies, even though people like to blame the consumer for not making the right choice. It's how we justify the bad actors behaviour, just because they're more powerful and we want to rationalize it somehow.

a_humean 5y ago

I feel like Europe and the UK tends to have a better approach to these things. We don't leave it to private litigation with class action lawsuits to enforce consumer protection standards, but instead we have various regulators both locally and nationally that can fine and force remedial action. We also have statutory warranties that set certain standards about the lifetime of goods - often times going beyond the advertised warranties of the manufacturer. In the UK one concern is a lot of trading standards offices have been gutted locally over the past 10 years due to austerity cuts hitting local councils hardest meaning consumers have some difficulty getting action without going to court when it concerns local businesses. Actually going to court is an act of last resort for exceptional cases or when a regulator fails in their duties (and even then regulators have their own regulators, ombudsman, often times for escalating complaints).

pfranz 5y ago

I'm not sure if they were part of the settlement from a class action suit, but often I've seen recall/repair programs and extended warranties instead of the coupons or meager checks I often see from class action cases. It sucks that even the extended warranty period will expire and your screen/keyboard/battery might just break again, but it gives me an opportunity to repair it and decide if I want to continue using it for the next few years.

krisoft 5y ago

I think one did benefit me, although indirectly. This is an old old story. I had a macbook which suddenly developed a GPU problem. The computer was so old that it was way out of waranty, but I learned that apple is voluntarily offering to fix computers with this specific problem even if they are out of warranty. My belief is that this program was born out of a class-action suit. (Though I am unable to find proof of that right now.) Basically, if i remember it right, the lawsuit forced apple to admit that this is indeed a manufacturing defect and thus I got my GPU fixed for free.

okamiueru 5y ago
How old was the product at that time?
- pfranz 5y ago
  I only read about it when it was happening. From Googling around this seems to be a rough timeline: some 2011 Macbook Pros were affected, lawsuit filed Oct 2014[1], February 2015 Apple launches a repair program, May 2017 it seems to end that program[2]. The last public update I see about the lawsuit is from January 2015 [3]--at least, I think. I really hate websites that don't date their posts. I imagine the suit was dropped when the repair program was negotiated. The source of the issue seems to have been lead-free solder, which was adopted in the mid-2000s and seemed to cause problems for a decade or so. [1] https://9to5mac.com/2014/10/28/apple-class-action-lawsuit-2011-macbook-pro-gpu-graphics-issues/ https://9to5mac.com/2014/10/28/apple-class-action-lawsuit-20... [2] https://www.cultofmac.com/482762/apple-no-longer-repairing-2011-macbook-pros-faulty-gpus/ https://www.cultofmac.com/482762/apple-no-longer-repairing-2... [3] https://www.whitfieldbryson.com/news/tag/macbook-pro/ https://www.whitfieldbryson.com/news/tag/macbook-pro/

TAForObvReasons 5y ago

The threat of a class action lawsuit was enough for Nintendo to proactively offer free joy-con replacements/repairs in the US for stick drift.

CJefferson 5y ago

Go and watch the film "Erin Brockovich". It's (in my, and many people's opinion) a good film, and people involved say it's fairly accurate. To me it shows what class actions are for -- a serious pollution incident which effected many people, but required a huge court case against a huge company to deal with. Many people recieved 6 figure sums, enough to move away and pay for medical care. It isn't a prefect story -- PG&E should have arguably paid even more, given the fact they basically poisoned an entire town, and knew about it for years.

traveler01 5y ago

Hopefuly will benefict the users too. Apple has been charging a lot to fix an issue created by a design defect.