Millennial Money: Should I join a class-action lawsuit?
When you receive an email or mail notice inviting you to join a class-action lawsuit, or notifying you that you’ve been automatically included, it might give you pause
It might have happened to you a few times in past years: You received an email or mail notice inviting you to join a class-action lawsuit, or notifying you that you’ve been automatically included. But being part of such a lawsuit might be intimidating, especially if you need to opt in, and would mean surrendering the option to sue individually.
In most cases, there’s little downside to joining these lawsuits, which combine many legal claims — often thousands — into one claim against a single defendant, reducing fees for each claimant and potentially earning a much larger payout.
And there have been many opportunities to do so. Following a series of large opioid settlements, 2022 had the most billion-dollar class-action settlements in U.S. history apart from the tobacco settlements decades ago, according to a report from the national law firm Duane Morris. The stakes are high for class-action lawsuits at this level, as they set standards for corporate responsibility in areas such as data privacy, employee discrimination, securities fraud and civil rights.
But in cases where you suffered significant harm, suing individually could secure a bigger payout.
