Have you ever been adversely affected due to the negligence of an individual or an organization? If yes is your answer and you can find other people affected by the same individual or organization, you may have a right to claim a significant amount of money in a settlement. Let discuss what are Class Action Lawsuits and What is the Average Payout?
Open class action settlements provide the affected people with a way to file a class-action lawsuit rather than proceeding with their cases individually. And if your party manages to win the case, a substantial amount in the settlement would be paid to each and every affected person.
But there are a lot of things you need to learn about a class-action lawsuit and this article strives to equip you with as much relevant knowledge as possible. So, let’s jump right into it.
How to Join a Class Action Lawsuit?
If you are notified that you are involved in a lawsuit, the best course of action you can take is to be patient and observe if the disputes resolve in your favor. If this happens and it’s announced that the settlement amount will be issued to the class members, you will probably be notified once again.
But if your lawsuit concerns workplace violations, you shouldn’t wait before taking any action. In such a scenario, you need to step forward and communicate with the essential parties to confirm your participation in the lawsuit.
How to Check if You Qualify for a Settlement?
In order to become a member of the class-action lawsuit against a particular individual or company, you need to be proactive. There are numerous websites that can lead you to open class action settlements.
Consumer Action Class Action Database happens to be one of those sites. Once you access it, you can find a complete list of closed, pending, and open class-action cases. In order to claim money that is rightfully yours, you will have to check out the open lawsuits that are paying people for damages, losses, and other sorts of inconvenience.
You will have to make sure that your claim gets filed before the specified deadline for that particular lawsuit.
Once you have dealt with the open lawsuits that concern you, be sure to keep hitting the web and checking out the availability of new open class action lawsuits
Some settlements might boost your net worth by a couple of dollars while others will directly add thousands of dollars to your bank account. So, be on the lookout and keep claiming every single penny owed to you.
Notable Examples of Class Action Lawsuit Settlements
Class-action lawsuits can be filed against an automaker that integrated a faulty part in one of its cars, resulting in several people suffering inconvenience, or even against a corporation on grounds of accounting frauds.
Some notable examples of class action lawsuit settlements include:
- Back in 2014, AT&T Mobility was forced to pay an enormous settlement amount of $45 million owing to the unwarranted robocalls made to several individuals.
- In 2016, German automaker Volkswagen was ordered to submit a settlement amount of $14.7 billion due to the company’s questionable act of faking emission tests on its cars running on diesel, affecting around 475,000 car owners.
- In 2007, it was decided that Tyco International would be paying $3.2 billion in settlements to shareholders who were conned by the company’s executives. While Tyco ended up agreeing to submit a payment amounting to almost $3 billion, the surplus amount was covered by PricewaterhouseCoopers, Tyco’s former auditing firm.
Average Settlement Amount Submitted to Each Individual
Don’t get confused by the aforementioned examples of class action lawsuit settlements. While the companies at fault had to pay millions, if not billions, of dollars to resolve different claims, this sum was distributed among a number of people.
In fact, there have been instances of millions of people participating in a class-action lawsuit. Add to the fact that the lawyer(s) representing you will take a significant share of the pie. So, after the removal of the lawyers’ share, the remaining amount can be distributed equally or unequally (if decided beforehand) among the class members.
Generally, each member receives from a quarter of a dollar to a couple of dollars per settlement. But in certain cases, an individual can easily bag thousands of dollars.
As per a study conducted by NERA Economic Consulting, the average settlements have amounted to roughly $56.5 million.
Conclusion
There’s a chance of a company owing you a decent amount of money without you even realizing it. Remain active on the internet and continuously check if you are in a position to claim settlement. This can be done by keeping tabs on the list of open class action lawsuits. While your average payout per settlement can vary, it’s recommended to claim each and every cent that is rightfully yours.
