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> Amazon argued that the class was too large to be manageable Sorry, we've wronged too many people to be held accountable! What a wild argument.

gruez 1y ago
Looking at Amazon's filings, the argument they made is the following: >Given the unprecedented size of the proposed class consisting of 288 million members, the individualized issues on which their claims depend, and the overwhelming evidence that the challenged conduct resulted in lower prices in Amazon’s store, Plaintiffs have not—and cannot demonstrate that a class action would be manageable. The "individualized issues" references arguments presented earlier in the filing. They also cite prior cases where class lawsuits have been denied certification because the class was too big to be manageable. You might disagree with Amazon's lawyers here, but it's unfair to characterize it as "we've wronged too many people to be held accountable". It's an "wild" argument because it's a strawman. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.299854/gov.uscourts.wawd.299854.348.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.29...
- solardev 1y ago
  I don't see the difference between what the lawyers are saying and the parent's summary of it. > we've wronged too many people to be held accountable Sounds like exactly what it is... it's too big of a class to be managed, and therefore should not be? In fact, the very next line is the judge saying: > Chun found there was no evidence at this stage that the size of the class was overbroad. Other federal courts had certified class actions with millions or hundreds of millions of class members, the judge said.
  - gruez 1y ago
    >Sounds like exactly what it is... it's too big of a class to be managed, and therefore should not be? You missed the other 2 of the 3 parts of that argument. >In fact, the very next line is the judge saying: I'm not saying they're objectively right, just that there's more to the argument than "we've wronged too many people to be held accountable".
    - solardev 1y ago
      So it's not really a strawman at all, and it was in fact one of their main arguments. They just also made other arguments on top of that... Seems to me the parent was totally justified in calling it a wild argument.
      - gruez 1y ago
        >and it was in fact one of their main arguments It really wasn't. If you look at the table of contents, the part about was the class being too big was: 1. in one of the two top level arguments (II) 2. of (II), it was one of 6 sub-arguments (F) 3. of (F), the actual argument is "Plaintiffs Have Not Satisfied Rule 23(b)(3)’s Superiority Requirement.", of which the class was too big was one of three factors. For reference the other two are "the individualized issues on which their claims depend, and the overwhelming evidence that the challenged conduct resulted in lower prices in Amazon’s store" >Seems to me the parent was totally justified in calling it a wild argument. It really isn't. The specific legal standard is that if the total time to adjudicate all the class members is large, then class certification should be denied. This seems reasonable to me, at least in isolation. What's the point of a legal case that takes so long to resolve that by the time it's finished, everyone involved would be dead? Again, you might not agree with Amazon's argument that it's too complex to be resolved, and it's fine to deride them for thinking that the case is too complex for the court system to handle, but they're simply not making the claim that they should be let off the hook on the basis of 300 million plaintiffs alone.
        solardev 1y ago
        Sorry, I don't agree that any of that fundamentally changes the wild argument that "we've wronged too many people to be held accountable!". But, hey, I'm just a rando on the internet. Feel free to disregard this comment.
        gruez 1y ago
        For one, they can still be held to account through individual lawsuits. Also at least part of the reason behind class action lawsuits is to streamline the lawsuit process. If a lawsuit ends up taking 100 years because that's long it takes to adjudicate each class member (which was the case in a prior unrelated lawsuit), then arguably a class action lawsuit is a poor fit. As the saying goes, justice delayed is justice denied. If you're allergic to nuance and want to round these considerations off to "you can't be held to account if you wronged too many people", then go for it, I can't stop you.
  - mikeryan 1y ago
    I mean there are technical legal issues in the size of a class. For example, any member of a class can object to any settlement agreement or any multiple groups of class members can object to a settlement making managing approval difficult. The flip side to Amazons argument though is that if the judge decided the class was too big they could break into multiple classes and Amazon would end up defending themselves on multiple fronts. Usually companies facing these things want to roll it all into a single class for that reason alone.
- MangoToupe 1y ago
  > resulted in lower prices in Amazon’s store lower than what?
  - gruez 1y ago
    Read the rest of the document from amazon, linked in my post.
    - MangoToupe 1y ago
      Surely you're joking. What? Why can't you just quote the relevant context?
  - adrr 1y ago
    Or increased prices outside of Amazon. If you sold a shirt from your own website with 10% in selling costs and also sold on FBA where Amazon takes ~30%, do you lower prices on Amazon to match the price on your site(not allowed) or do raise prices on your own store? Factor in your gross margins that you're trying to hit.
- kevin_thibedeau 1y ago
  > overwhelming evidence that the challenged conduct resulted in lower prices in Amazon’s store Shkreli made back all the money from his clients that he misappropriated (by gambling with Retrophin shares). He still went to jail for fraud.
  - nickff 1y ago
    That was a criminal charge, not a class-action, and very different rules apply. Shkreli also committed one set of frauds against one company which affected many people; Amazon engaged in separate anti-competitive acts against many different companies which affected nearly the whole country.
    - justinclift 1y ago
      > which affected nearly the whole country. And people outside the US as well, though those would likely have to be separate legal matters.
- Frieren 1y ago
  > They also cite prior cases where class lawsuits have been denied certification because the class was too big to be manageable. Evil corp got away with it once. All evil corps should be able to do the same is not a sane argument. But it is an argument to add regulations and make large corporations accountable as soon as possible. So, make them pay for their past damage and force them to have better practices from now on.
- Zigurd 1y ago
  To say it's "unfair" is a non sequitur. Other classes may have been denied certification because they are large. But being "unmanageable" is both vague and in no way equivalent to being unfair, as you put it. Computers are fast and capacious. You can manage a few hundred million things on your phone.
- salawat 1y ago
  We have the technology to handle billions of MAU's financial transactions for billing, but there noooo way we can manage to track that many people's legal gripes against us! Bulllllllshiiiiiit.
p1necone 1y ago
Unfortunately this approach seems to fly all the time for large businesses. Plucky startup takes the 'ask forgiveness rather than permission' approach and ignores a bunch of regulations, legal system doesn't care because they're just a plucky startup. 10 or so years later plucky startup is a massive corpo, another 5 or so years later the legal system catches up but they're a massive corpo making piles of cash and the worst the legal system can do at that point is penalize them with the equivalent of pocket change compared to the piles of cash they made while ignoring those regulations.
- gruez 1y ago
  >up but they're a massive corpo making piles of cash and the worst the legal system can do at that point is penalize them with the equivalent of pocket change compared to the piles of cash they made while ignoring those regulations. Examples? Usually when I see this argument being brought up, it's usually something like "[multinational megacorp] fined $x for breaking Belgian privacy laws", and then people pile in saying how "$x is 1% of [multinational megacorp]'s turnover" and therefore the fine is just "a cost of doing business", but neglecting to account for how much % of their revenue is in Belgium, or how much money they could have plausibly gained from the offenses in question.
  - solardev 1y ago
    Uber and Lyft with regard to taxi and contractor/employee laws, Google in regards to privacy, Meta in regards to basically everything...
    - gruez 1y ago
      You haven't identified a specific case in any of the examples so I asked an LLM to do it for you, and came up with two: 1. O'Connor v. Uber Technologies, Inc (2013): So far as I can tell, they settled for $20M, but the settlement allowed uber to continue classifying drivers as contractors. You might be able to spin this as how uber is above the law or whatever, but the alternate take is that the drivers had a weak case, and were settling for whatever they could get. Not the best case to argue that companies are fined too little. 2. New York AG vs Uber: it seems like the settlement was two parts: a cash payout for past drivers and additional benefits to drivers going forward. Digging deeper into the settlement, it looks like for the former like uber's crime was improperly deducting sales taxes and black car fees[1], rather than failing to pay benefits. It doesn't look like uber got fined at all for not providing benefits. Again, you can frame this as uber being so above the law that they got fined $0 (!), but the argument from above applies. Maybe the NY AG had a weak case. Clearly they're willing to fine uber for something as vague as improper sales tax deductions, so why didn't they go for damages for uber not paying benefits? [1] https://ubernyagsettlement.com/Portals/0/Document%20Files/NYAG%20AOD%20Uber.pdf?ver=Kbgqc_MmKMmv030ory9Wzw%3d%3d https://ubernyagsettlement.com/Portals/0/Document%20Files/NY...
dragonwriter 1y ago
> Sorry, we've wronged too many people to be held accountable! What a wild argument. Class actions, as an alternative to the normal direct action lawsuits, are an accommodation in the legal system for economy of justice; a class that is too diverse in how they are situated with respect to the issues raised (which is a more accurate summary than the article’s “too large” for Amazon’s argument) negate that function. I’m not saying the court ruled incorrectly on Amazon’s argument, just that the article is misleading on what the argument actually is.
sudoshred 1y ago
Too big to fail.
fastball 1y ago
Manageable isn't just from Amazon's side, it is also an argument from the side of the plaintiffs. e.g. "This class is too diverse. It will be like herding 300 million cats, which decreases the likelihood of arriving at a suitable settlement. Better to split this into multiple classes with more specific grievances". Everyone benefits from the class being manageable (except maybe the plaintiffs' attorneys, who just want the biggest class they can possibly find).
- FireBeyond 1y ago
  "decreases the likelihood"? What's the difference between a class of 20M and one of 200M? 99.98% of them aren't being surveyed for specific grievances, they're ticking a box on a letter or on a website. Let's not pretend that they're all getting surveyed for their desired outcome.
jihadjihad 1y ago
Too big to fine?
SlightlyLeftPad 1y ago
Pardon me, I am looking forward to my future $0.03 cheque
conductr 1y ago
I laughed at this line too, effectively “Our scale is so big we should only be allowed to profit from it”
Woodi 1y ago
Yep, and if legal system won't work in such cases then it clearly need to be redone, somehow. It would be realy easy in monarchy (if monarch wants) so why obvious _effect_ can't be possible with democracy too ? Same with "right deny to repair" - obviously anti-legal. Stupidity can't win forever.

gruez 1y ago

Looking at Amazon's filings, the argument they made is the following: >Given the unprecedented size of the proposed class consisting of 288 million members, the individualized issues on which their claims depend, and the overwhelming evidence that the challenged conduct resulted in lower prices in Amazon’s store, Plaintiffs have not—and cannot demonstrate that a class action would be manageable. The "individualized issues" references arguments presented earlier in the filing. They also cite prior cases where class lawsuits have been denied certification because the class was too big to be manageable. You might disagree with Amazon's lawyers here, but it's unfair to characterize it as "we've wronged too many people to be held accountable". It's an "wild" argument because it's a strawman. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.299854/gov.uscourts.wawd.299854.348.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.29...

solardev 1y ago
I don't see the difference between what the lawyers are saying and the parent's summary of it. > we've wronged too many people to be held accountable Sounds like exactly what it is... it's too big of a class to be managed, and therefore should not be? In fact, the very next line is the judge saying: > Chun found there was no evidence at this stage that the size of the class was overbroad. Other federal courts had certified class actions with millions or hundreds of millions of class members, the judge said.
- gruez 1y ago
  >Sounds like exactly what it is... it's too big of a class to be managed, and therefore should not be? You missed the other 2 of the 3 parts of that argument. >In fact, the very next line is the judge saying: I'm not saying they're objectively right, just that there's more to the argument than "we've wronged too many people to be held accountable".
  - solardev 1y ago
    So it's not really a strawman at all, and it was in fact one of their main arguments. They just also made other arguments on top of that... Seems to me the parent was totally justified in calling it a wild argument.
    - gruez 1y ago
      >and it was in fact one of their main arguments It really wasn't. If you look at the table of contents, the part about was the class being too big was: 1. in one of the two top level arguments (II) 2. of (II), it was one of 6 sub-arguments (F) 3. of (F), the actual argument is "Plaintiffs Have Not Satisfied Rule 23(b)(3)’s Superiority Requirement.", of which the class was too big was one of three factors. For reference the other two are "the individualized issues on which their claims depend, and the overwhelming evidence that the challenged conduct resulted in lower prices in Amazon’s store" >Seems to me the parent was totally justified in calling it a wild argument. It really isn't. The specific legal standard is that if the total time to adjudicate all the class members is large, then class certification should be denied. This seems reasonable to me, at least in isolation. What's the point of a legal case that takes so long to resolve that by the time it's finished, everyone involved would be dead? Again, you might not agree with Amazon's argument that it's too complex to be resolved, and it's fine to deride them for thinking that the case is too complex for the court system to handle, but they're simply not making the claim that they should be let off the hook on the basis of 300 million plaintiffs alone.
      - solardev 1y ago
        Sorry, I don't agree that any of that fundamentally changes the wild argument that "we've wronged too many people to be held accountable!". But, hey, I'm just a rando on the internet. Feel free to disregard this comment.
        gruez 1y ago
        For one, they can still be held to account through individual lawsuits. Also at least part of the reason behind class action lawsuits is to streamline the lawsuit process. If a lawsuit ends up taking 100 years because that's long it takes to adjudicate each class member (which was the case in a prior unrelated lawsuit), then arguably a class action lawsuit is a poor fit. As the saying goes, justice delayed is justice denied. If you're allergic to nuance and want to round these considerations off to "you can't be held to account if you wronged too many people", then go for it, I can't stop you.
- mikeryan 1y ago
  I mean there are technical legal issues in the size of a class. For example, any member of a class can object to any settlement agreement or any multiple groups of class members can object to a settlement making managing approval difficult. The flip side to Amazons argument though is that if the judge decided the class was too big they could break into multiple classes and Amazon would end up defending themselves on multiple fronts. Usually companies facing these things want to roll it all into a single class for that reason alone.
MangoToupe 1y ago
> resulted in lower prices in Amazon’s store lower than what?
- gruez 1y ago
  Read the rest of the document from amazon, linked in my post.
  - MangoToupe 1y ago
    Surely you're joking. What? Why can't you just quote the relevant context?
- adrr 1y ago
  Or increased prices outside of Amazon. If you sold a shirt from your own website with 10% in selling costs and also sold on FBA where Amazon takes ~30%, do you lower prices on Amazon to match the price on your site(not allowed) or do raise prices on your own store? Factor in your gross margins that you're trying to hit.
kevin_thibedeau 1y ago
> overwhelming evidence that the challenged conduct resulted in lower prices in Amazon’s store Shkreli made back all the money from his clients that he misappropriated (by gambling with Retrophin shares). He still went to jail for fraud.
- nickff 1y ago
  That was a criminal charge, not a class-action, and very different rules apply. Shkreli also committed one set of frauds against one company which affected many people; Amazon engaged in separate anti-competitive acts against many different companies which affected nearly the whole country.
  - justinclift 1y ago
    > which affected nearly the whole country. And people outside the US as well, though those would likely have to be separate legal matters.
Frieren 1y ago
> They also cite prior cases where class lawsuits have been denied certification because the class was too big to be manageable. Evil corp got away with it once. All evil corps should be able to do the same is not a sane argument. But it is an argument to add regulations and make large corporations accountable as soon as possible. So, make them pay for their past damage and force them to have better practices from now on.
Zigurd 1y ago
To say it's "unfair" is a non sequitur. Other classes may have been denied certification because they are large. But being "unmanageable" is both vague and in no way equivalent to being unfair, as you put it. Computers are fast and capacious. You can manage a few hundred million things on your phone.
salawat 1y ago
We have the technology to handle billions of MAU's financial transactions for billing, but there noooo way we can manage to track that many people's legal gripes against us! Bulllllllshiiiiiit.

p1necone 1y ago

Unfortunately this approach seems to fly all the time for large businesses. Plucky startup takes the 'ask forgiveness rather than permission' approach and ignores a bunch of regulations, legal system doesn't care because they're just a plucky startup. 10 or so years later plucky startup is a massive corpo, another 5 or so years later the legal system catches up but they're a massive corpo making piles of cash and the worst the legal system can do at that point is penalize them with the equivalent of pocket change compared to the piles of cash they made while ignoring those regulations.

gruez 1y ago
>up but they're a massive corpo making piles of cash and the worst the legal system can do at that point is penalize them with the equivalent of pocket change compared to the piles of cash they made while ignoring those regulations. Examples? Usually when I see this argument being brought up, it's usually something like "[multinational megacorp] fined $x for breaking Belgian privacy laws", and then people pile in saying how "$x is 1% of [multinational megacorp]'s turnover" and therefore the fine is just "a cost of doing business", but neglecting to account for how much % of their revenue is in Belgium, or how much money they could have plausibly gained from the offenses in question.
- solardev 1y ago
  Uber and Lyft with regard to taxi and contractor/employee laws, Google in regards to privacy, Meta in regards to basically everything...
  - gruez 1y ago
    You haven't identified a specific case in any of the examples so I asked an LLM to do it for you, and came up with two: 1. O'Connor v. Uber Technologies, Inc (2013): So far as I can tell, they settled for $20M, but the settlement allowed uber to continue classifying drivers as contractors. You might be able to spin this as how uber is above the law or whatever, but the alternate take is that the drivers had a weak case, and were settling for whatever they could get. Not the best case to argue that companies are fined too little. 2. New York AG vs Uber: it seems like the settlement was two parts: a cash payout for past drivers and additional benefits to drivers going forward. Digging deeper into the settlement, it looks like for the former like uber's crime was improperly deducting sales taxes and black car fees[1], rather than failing to pay benefits. It doesn't look like uber got fined at all for not providing benefits. Again, you can frame this as uber being so above the law that they got fined $0 (!), but the argument from above applies. Maybe the NY AG had a weak case. Clearly they're willing to fine uber for something as vague as improper sales tax deductions, so why didn't they go for damages for uber not paying benefits? [1] https://ubernyagsettlement.com/Portals/0/Document%20Files/NYAG%20AOD%20Uber.pdf?ver=Kbgqc_MmKMmv030ory9Wzw%3d%3d https://ubernyagsettlement.com/Portals/0/Document%20Files/NY...

dragonwriter 1y ago

> Sorry, we've wronged too many people to be held accountable! What a wild argument. Class actions, as an alternative to the normal direct action lawsuits, are an accommodation in the legal system for economy of justice; a class that is too diverse in how they are situated with respect to the issues raised (which is a more accurate summary than the article’s “too large” for Amazon’s argument) negate that function. I’m not saying the court ruled incorrectly on Amazon’s argument, just that the article is misleading on what the argument actually is.

sudoshred 1y ago

Too big to fail.

fastball 1y ago

Manageable isn't just from Amazon's side, it is also an argument from the side of the plaintiffs. e.g. "This class is too diverse. It will be like herding 300 million cats, which decreases the likelihood of arriving at a suitable settlement. Better to split this into multiple classes with more specific grievances". Everyone benefits from the class being manageable (except maybe the plaintiffs' attorneys, who just want the biggest class they can possibly find).

FireBeyond 1y ago
"decreases the likelihood"? What's the difference between a class of 20M and one of 200M? 99.98% of them aren't being surveyed for specific grievances, they're ticking a box on a letter or on a website. Let's not pretend that they're all getting surveyed for their desired outcome.

jihadjihad 1y ago

Too big to fine?

SlightlyLeftPad 1y ago

Pardon me, I am looking forward to my future $0.03 cheque

conductr 1y ago

I laughed at this line too, effectively “Our scale is so big we should only be allowed to profit from it”

Woodi 1y ago

Yep, and if legal system won't work in such cases then it clearly need to be redone, somehow. It would be realy easy in monarchy (if monarch wants) so why obvious _effect_ can't be possible with democracy too ? Same with "right deny to repair" - obviously anti-legal. Stupidity can't win forever.