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Class action lawsuits--allowing one or a few plaintiffs to represent many who seek redress--have long been controversial. The current controversy, centered on lawsuits for money damages, is characterized by sharp disagreement among stakeholders about the kinds of suits being filed, whether plaintiffs' claims are meritorious, and whether resolutions to class actions are fair or socially desirable. Ultimately, these concerns lead many to wonder, Are class actions worth their costs to society and to business? Do they do more harm than good? To describe the landscape of current damage class action litigation, elucidate problems, and identify solutions, the RAND Institute for Civil Justice conducted a study using qualitative and quantitative research methods. The researchers concluded that the controversy over damage class actions has proven intractable because it implicates deeply held but sharply contested ideological views among stakeholders. Nevertheless, many of the political antagonists agree that class action practices merit improvement. The authors argue that both practices and outcomes could be substantially improved if more judges would supervise class action litigation more actively and scrutinize proposed settlements and fee awards more carefully. Educating and empowering judges to take more responsibility for case outcomes--and ensuring that they have the resources to do so--can help the civil justice system achieve a better balance between the public goals of class actions and the private interests that drive them.

Sacramento Cable Television is the sole cable television operator for Sacramento, California, a metropolitan area of about 1.5 million residents. It services the cities of Sacramento, Folsom, and Galt as well as the County of Sacramento. Through 1996, Sacramento Cable Television operated as a partnership of Scripps-Howard Cable Company of Sacramento, which was owned by the large Scripps-Howard Broadcasting Corporation, and River City Cable vision, Inc.³ Although the subscriber base has varied as households add and drop cable services, the company serviced, on average, approximately 209,000 subscribers per month between 1992 and 1994 for charges ranging from $10 to $23.⁴

When a consumer buys relatively costly items such as automobiles, furniture, or appliances, the purchase price is often wholly or partly financed by the dealership or retail store. When the contracts of sale and financing are signed, buyers are frequently asked if they would also like to obtain a special kind of insurance—for an additional fee—that would protect their purchase from repossession if they were unable to make the required monthly payments as a result of various calamities. One such coverage, dubbed “credit life insurance,” is designed so that in the event of the purchaser’s death, no further

The banking industry suffered a series of devastating failures in the 1980s. One result of these failures was closer regulatory examination of the solvency of banks and the financial arrangements into which banks entered.³ Banking regulators suggested that one practice of the banking business that contributed to the crises of the 1980s was that some banks undersecured their loans. To head off the potential problems caused by undersecured loans, banking regulators recommended that all borrowers who secured their loans with collateral such as a car or a home carry insurance so that the loan would be safe if the collateral

Louisiana-Pacific Corporation is a leading forest products firm headquartered in Portland, Oregon. In about 100 facilities throughout the United States, Canada, and Ireland, it manufactures lumber, pulp, structural and other panel products, hardwood veneers, and cellulose insulation. In the early 1980s, Louisiana-Pacific began developing alternatives to lumber for use as home siding. The idea was to develop materials that could be constructed cheaply from wood manufacturing by-products and lower-grade wood.³ These alternative products were intended to be competitive with the numerous nonwood construction products that were beginning to increase in market share, such as aluminum siding and plastic construction products

Whether and when to enable large numbers of individuals to bring claims collectively against a single or a few defendants has long been a subject of debate in the civil law. The language of the debate is the language of civil procedure: the formal rules that govern when and how plaintiffs may bring suits against defendants; how those defendants may contest the plaintiffs’ claims; and how the adversaries may bring to bear the facts and law that are relevant to their dispute, so as to ultimately reach a resolution of the case.¹ But underlying disagreements about procedural rules rests the

Beginning in the late 1970s, polybutylene plastic plumbing systems—touted as being cheaper and more durable than copper pipe systems—were installed in new homes nationwide, particularly in the sunbelt states, which were experiencing a housing boom. Over the years, several million homes, many of them mobile homes, were built with polybutylene plumbing systems.³ Before long, the plumbing systems began to experience failures of the fittings and of the pipe itself. Consumers nationwide attributed the failures to various causes, including inadequate design, defective manufacturing, improper installation, and degradation of the materials from chemicals in the drinking water.⁴ More than ten