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Class Action Lawsuits: Claims
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Class actions are a cost-effective way for many people to have their claims determined in a single lawsuit rather than many individual lawsuits. Class actions make the judicial system available to many people who otherwise would not be able to afford to make a claim on individual basis.
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The Austrian Code of Civil Procedure (Zivilprozessordnung – ZPO) does not provide for a special proceeding for complex class action litigation. However, Austrian consumer organizations (Verein für Konsumenteninformation/VKI and the Federal Chamber of Labour/Bundesarbeitskammer) have, in recent years, brought claims on behalf of hundreds or even thousands of consumers. This technique, soon labelled as “class action Austrian style”, allows for a significant reduction of overall costs. The Austrian Supreme Court, in a recent judgment, has confirmed the legal admissibility of these lawsuits under the condition that all claims are essentially based on the same grounds.
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A class action is a procedural device that, under certain circumstances, allows a number of individual claims and the rights of a large number of people to be decided in one lawsuit. A class action joins numerous parties and related claims. The class action ... represents the interests of persons not before the court. As a result, not all class members must become parties to the lawsuit in order to have their rights adjudicated. Usually, only a few members of the class actually appear in court.
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Generally, class members will have the legal right to opt out of any proposed settlement of the class action. Those who choose to opt out of the class action will then have the freedom to pursue their claims individually against the defendants. Those who fail to exercise their opt out rights, either because they want their prorata share of the proposed settlement consideration or simply because they ignored the court notification and allowed their opt out rights to lapse, will be bound by any judgment entered by the court. Such a judgment in a class action will generally have claim preclusive effect, under the Full Faith and Credit Act,[4] on either pending or subsequently filed litigation arising from the same transaction. This preclusive effect will extend to any other forum, both state and federal, in which a plaintiff might file claims against the defendants named in the class action.
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Class action lawsuits are typically very time-consuming. However, the amount of time it will take to receive compensation depends on a variety of factors, such as the complexity of the claims involved, the number of class members involved, and the ease with which individual compensation can be determined. Thus, it can take anywhere from a few months to several years.
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Modern multiforum litigation creates a conflict of interest environment in which attorneys representing class plaintiffs may be tempted to settle class action lawsuits for the wrong reasons. Instead of rejecting an inadequate settlement offer, the class counsel might recommend settlement so that he can be assured of collecting an attorney fee award and so that the claims of his clients will not become barred by the preclusive effect of a settlement negotiated in another forum. A trend has now developed in which the plaintiff class counsel compete with one another to offer the best and most sweeping settlement terms to defendants, and these settlements generally contain a global release of all claims in other fora. Once these global releases are approved and entered as part of a class action judgment, the releases effectively extinguish or bar related actions by class members in any other forum.
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