Leather and jeans garage glamorous8/23/2023 Practices such as this clearly erode the efficacy of class actions to bring justice. It adds further insult to injury that the company also used the settlement itself as an opportunity to promote their product by giving out certificates which only partially cover the cost of a testing kit, they induced class members to spend more of their own money on 23andMe products in order to be able to make use of the settlement they received. For the many class members who purchased the expensive kit because they were misled, this means their expenditures were not reimbursed. Neither of these options is sufficient to cover the cost of even one genetic testing kit. After the lawsuit was settled in September 2017, class members were given compensation either in the form of a $12.50 cash payment, or a $40 certificate that could be put towards purchasing a new 23andMe genetic testing kit. The company made claims that their product could diagnose genetic predispositions to medical conditions – including life-threatening diseases such as cancer – without FDA approval. Similarly, a class action lawsuit was filed against the genetic testing company 23andMe for false advertising. It is certainly not enough to also compensate for all the additional hardships class members may have experienced due to their cars’ faulty engines: missed work time resulting from unreliable transportation, medical and insurance bills for injuries and vehicle damage sustained in automobile accidents, or the cost of towing cars which broke down on the road, to name a few. That amount is, at best, barely sufficient to cover the cost of engine repairs. However, once divided amongst the approximately 38,000 class members and their lawyers, it amounted to a mere $2,700 per class member. In October of 2022, the jury ordered that General Motors pay $102.6 million to the class members. For instance, General Motors was recently sued over a flaw in their car engines which led to stalling and breakdowns. Therefore, even settlements that seem generous result in only meager payments to each victim. ![]() Unfortunately, in practice, damages must be divided between all class members. Ideally, meting out damages in this manner would both reimburse victims and prevent companies from committing harmful acts in the first place. When a class action is successful, the settlement paid to the class members will include both compensatory damages (a sum intended to compensate for harms inflicted) and punitive damages (an additional sum, intended to punish the wrongdoer and deter future transgressions). ![]() The legal basis for class action lawsuits is known as Rule 23, under which a class member may sue as a representative of all members so long as certain requisites regarding the commonalities among class members are met. Therefore, class actions, though appealing in theory, ultimately fail to provide justice for either victims or perpetrators in reality. Meanwhile, the class members must divide the settlement between so many people that, in the end, they receive next to nothing. However, even when class actions succeed, the damages paid by the company are typically only a small fraction of its profit – hardly enough to deter future wrongdoing. This is often the only way that individuals with limited finances can take on wealthy corporations in court. This type of lawsuit is known as a “class action,” and involves a group of multiple plaintiffs (called “class members”) collectively suing a defendant. ![]() However, a serious flaw in this system arises when ordinary people attempt to sue large corporations. Jokes aside, accountability is important, and lawsuits often provide it by vindicating the aggrieved party and forcing the wrongdoer to make amends. ![]() Deprecated: Redis::pconnect(): Passing null to parameter #2 ($port) of type int is deprecated in /home/deb116939/domains//public_html/wp-content/plugins/w3-total-cache/Cache_Redis.php on line 523ĭeprecated: Redis::pconnect(): Passing null to parameter #2 ($port) of type int is deprecated in /home/deb116939/domains//public_html/wp-content/plugins/w3-total-cache/Cache_Redis.By: Ava Raine Edited By: Luke Vredenburg and Emily yangĪmericans’ tendency to sue – businesses, employers, each other – is so well established, it has become a punchline.
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