You know those commercials that ask if you suffered such and such during a certain period of time, announcing they are bringing a class action lawsuit...Do you think the motivator is to get $ from people in the form of retainers and then the case never goes anywhere. Or do they actually get cases together?

If you don't have them in your area, you won't know what I am talking about. Here, there are so many for cancers, birth defects and motorcycle accidents.

My mother considered joining the lawsuit against Con-Agra foods when she got salmonella from the Peter Pan Peanut Butter (NEVER again we will never buy it again) and she almost died, but she decided not to because she found out even if they didn't win she'd still have to pay the attorneys.

RedBedroom wrote:

You know those commercials that ask if you suffered such and such during a certain period of time, announcing they are bringing a class action lawsuit...Do you think the motivator is to get $ from people in the form of retainers and then the case never goes anywhere. Or do they actually get cases together?

If you don't have them in your area, you won't know what I am talking about. Here, there are so many for cancers, birth defects and motorcycle accidents.

I see them all the time on TV I think they are a bunch of bull.

I wouldn't trust them.

Ambulance chasers.

Supernova wrote:

My mother considered joining the lawsuit against Con-Agra foods when she got salmonella from the Peter Pan Peanut Butter (NEVER again we will never buy it again) and she almost died, but she decided not to because she found out even if they didn't win she'd still have to pay the attorneys.

Hopefully there's someone here who has a background in law, but this doesn't sound right to me. Looked around & all the info was the same.

Quote :

Who pays the lawyers in a class action lawsuit?

In a class action for money damages, lawyers who represent the class are generally paid out of the money that's recovered - called a "common fund" - for the people they are representing. In class actions involving declaratory judgments or injunctive relief, lawyers may be paid by the people who hired them, or in some cases, by the people or companies they are suing.

Attorney's fee awards are subject to court review and approval. Ordinarily, if an award is made in a common fund case, it will be awarded as a percentage of the total money available for the class. A benchmark award generally accepted by the courts is approximately 25 percent of the total, although the award may be adjusted higher or lower, depending on the specific facts of a case.




http://class-actions.lawyers.com/Lawyer-Fees-in-Class-Actions.html

No idea how that particular case turned out but it may be that someone gave your mom some faulty information.

I dunno, but if you're the person that they are talking about, I don't think it would hurt to research it and check it out.

In general, I think those commercials are just the lawyers trying to line their pockets.

We have a friend who has Mesothelioma, she and her husband saw an ad on TV for a number in the US to call. She did call it to make a long story short she has to date received about $100,000.00 . She had no clue as to where she had come in contact with asbestos, but the lawyers involved went all the way back in her working background,and schools. They found she had worked in a government liquor store when she was young, that shortly after she moved on the store had been torn down because it had asbestos in it. She is holding her own after fighting it for several years now, but of course who knows how long this spell of good health will last.

If I or a loved one has died from this thing, they want me to call them so they can freeload off of my suffering.

Not necessarily true. And "freeloading" is hardly the case. As Suzi's post shows, there's a LOT of work that goes into discovery & filing & more filing. The average person couldn't pull it off alone. It sounds like they did a damn good job. We all tend to broad brush things sometimes. But the entire profession is far from corrupt.