Class action

A class action is a lawsuit in which one or more representative parties litigate claims on behalf of a court-approved group. It lets a court resolve shared legal issues for many people in one proceeding.

Class certification: A court's decision that a proposed group may litigate together as a class. Certification establishes whether the proposed group satisfies the legal requirements for one representative lawsuit.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23: The United States federal rule governing certification and procedure for most federal class actions. Its requirements provide the central framework for federal class certification.
Consumer class action: A class action brought by consumers alleging shared injuries from a business's products or practices. Small, similar losses can be pursued together when individual claims would be impractical.
Individual lawsuit: A lawsuit in which a claimant pursues their own legal claim rather than representing a group. It avoids class certification but requires each claimant to litigate separately.
Res judicata: The doctrine that a final judgment bars parties from relitigating claims that were or could have been resolved. A binding class judgment can prevent members from bringing the same claims individually.
Class representative: A person who litigates a class action on behalf of the class. The representative must protect the interests shared by absent class members.
Commonality: A class-certification requirement that class members share a common question capable of a common answer. A shared answer must help resolve the claims across the proposed class.
Securities class action: A class action alleging securities-law violations that harmed investors as a group. Investors may combine claims tied to the same alleged misrepresentation or market event.
Collective action: A group lawsuit, especially under the Fair Labor Standards Act, in which eligible workers opt in as plaintiffs. Unlike many class actions, membership generally requires affirmative consent to join.
Cy pres doctrine: A doctrine allowing settlement funds to be distributed to a related purpose when direct distribution is impracticable. It may determine where unclaimed or uneconomical-to-distribute class settlement funds go.

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