YASCALS (Yet Another Stupid Class Action Lawsuit)

[BoomerD]

This time, it's Netflix and Walmart...

https://onlinedvdclass.com/

What is this lawsuit about?

ANSWER:
The lawsuit claims that Wal-Mart and Netflix reached an unlawful agreement under which Wal-Mart would withdraw from the online DVD rental market and Netflix would not sell new DVDs. The lawsuit claims that this agreement caused Netflix subscribers to pay higher prices for online DVD rentals. Wal-Mart and Netflix deny: (1) that they entered into such an agreement, (2) that they have done anything wrong, (3) that the Plaintiffs have been harmed in any way, or (4) that the price of online DVD rentals was raised or inflated by any agreement between Wal-Mart and Netflix.

Wal-Mart is not admitting that it did anything wrong, but both sides want to avoid the cost of further litigation. The Court has not decided in favor of the Plaintiffs or Wal-Mart. The Class Representatives and their attorneys think the Settlement is best for everyone who is affected. The Settlement provides the opportunity for benefits to Class Members. Netflix has not agreed to settle and continues to believe that the lawsuit has no basis. Additional money may become available in the future as a result of a trial or future settlement with Netflix. Alternatively, the litigation may be resolved in favor of Netflix and no additional money may become available.

As usual, I'm sure this will work out along the lines of, "we the consumers" will get something like a valuable $0.50 coupon to be used on a $100 purchase...and the lawyers will get millions. 🙄

 

[alfa147x]

OKAY WE GET IT. YOU ARE ANTI IMMIGRANTS... DAMN IT BOOMER GET OFF OF ATOT

😉


Lowercase.

 

[alfa147x]

This time, it's Netflix and Walmart...

https://onlinedvdclass.com/



As usual, I'm sure this will work out along the lines of, "we the consumers" will get something like a valuable $0.50 coupon to be used on a $100 purchase...and the lawyers will get millions. 🙄

Seems like the purpose. Damn lawyers. Even law students suck

 

[drebo]

Any sane judge would throw this out of court in a heartbeat.

 

[BoomerD]

OKAY WE GET IT. YOU ARE ANTI IMMIGRANTS... DAMN IT BOOMER GET OFF OF ATOT

😉


Lowercase.

 

[SunnyD]

my particular favorite is that in cases like this, the defendants nearly always settle for a potential fraction of the damage, but always NEVER admit any wrongdoing or guilt.

If you all never did anything wrong, then why the hell are you settling?

 

[sao123]

my particular favorite is that in cases like this, the defendants nearly always settle for a potential fraction of the damage, but always NEVER admit any wrongdoing or guilt.

If you all never did anything wrong, then why the hell are you settling?

because it just costs less to settle than it would to fight and win out.

 

[sactoking]

The news article I saw yesterday indicated that the settlement was for about $25,000,000 with no admission of wrongdoing. The attorneys would get $8,000,000 + $1,700,000 in fees, each named plaintiff would get $5,000, and the class would split the rest. If half of the eligible class applied for restitution each person would get about $1.50.

This isn't a stupid class action, as Walmart and Netflix were conspiring to restrict the marketplace, but it sure as hell is a stupid class action settlement.

 

[BoomerD]

my particular favorite is that in cases like this, the defendants nearly always settle for a potential fraction of the damage, but always NEVER admit any wrongdoing or guilt.

If you all never did anything wrong, then why the hell are you settling?

Wal-Mart is not admitting that it did anything wrong, but both sides want to avoid the cost of further litigation.

The news article I saw yesterday indicated that the settlement was for about $25,000,000 with no admission of wrongdoing. The attorneys would get $8,000,000 + $1,700,000 in fees, each named plaintiff would get $5,000, and the class would split the rest. If half of the eligible class applied for restitution each person would get about $1.50.

This isn't a stupid class action, as Walmart and Netflix were conspiring to restrict the marketplace, but it sure as hell is a stupid class action settlement.

Sorry...EVERY class-action lawsuit is a stupid one. Yes, they MAY stop "illegal behavior" on the part of the company being sued, but in the end, the only ones who benefit are the fucking lawyers. (on both sides)

 

[Zenmervolt]

my particular favorite is that in cases like this, the defendants nearly always settle for a potential fraction of the damage, but always NEVER admit any wrongdoing or guilt.

If you all never did anything wrong, then why the hell are you settling?

(1) As others have said, settling can (and often does) cost less than winning in court.

(2) Even if settling costs more (which almost never happens), there are substantial non-monetary "costs" to having a lawsuit drag on for a long time.

(3) Because of the way discovery is handled in the US, there is strong potential for unrelated business information and trade secrets to be revealed and the desire to avoid this sort of disclosure very strongly favors settlement.

(4) Courts have been known to overturn prior cases; even when a company is operating entirely within the parameters established by previous cases, there is still the possibility that a court will decide that it was wrong in the past and impose a liability on the company even though it technically obeyed the past case law perfectly.

I'm sure there are plenty more reasons, but this should give you a basic idea of why people would settle even when innocent.

ZV

 

[Texashiker]

Forget a class action lawsuit, lets get the justice department involved and apply the RICO act.

Someone needs to go to prison over this.

 

[Zenmervolt]

Sorry...EVERY class-action lawsuit is a stupid one. Yes, they MAY stop "illegal behavior" on the part of the company being sued, but in the end, the only ones who benefit are the fucking lawyers. (on both sides)

Class-action suits DO stop illegal behavior. And they may be the only way to get a suit into federal courts (for various jurisdictional reasons it is often necessary to aggregate many relatively small claims in order to meet the threshold for suing in federal court), which is necessary to obtain any sort of strong precedential value from the case.

Without class action suits, cases where a company causes small harm (e.g. a couple dollars) to millions of individuals (so there's large harm to society as a whole) could not be prosecuted because no individual would find the case worth his time and effort.

That said, the system certainly isn't perfect and there is massive room for improvement. But to say that all class actions are "stupid" is naive nearly beyond belief.

ZV

 

[Zenmervolt]

Forget a class action lawsuit, lets get the justice department involved and apply the RICO act.

Someone needs to go to prison over this.

Market division is not covered anywhere in 18 U.S.C. § 1961–1968 (the "RICO act"). This was a Sherman 1 antitrust case from beginning to end.

ZV

 

[BoomerD]

Class-action suits DO stop illegal behavior. And they may be the only way to get a suit into federal courts (for various jurisdictional reasons it is often necessary to aggregate many relatively small claims in order to meet the threshold for suing in federal court), which is necessary to obtain any sort of strong precedential value from the case.

Without class action suits, cases where a company causes small harm (e.g. a couple dollars) to millions of individuals (so there's large harm to society as a whole) could not be prosecuted because no individual would find the case worth his time and effort.

That said, the system certainly isn't perfect and there is massive room for improvement. But to say that all class actions are "stupid" is naive nearly beyond belief.

ZV

Not naive at all. The idea behind a class-action lawsuit is good. Unfortunately, like I said, the only ones who really benefit from them is the attorneys. The company pays through the nose and the consumer gets a pittance...or a 50 cent coupon.
That's why I say all class-action lawsuits are stupid...they're only designed to enrich the lawyers.

 

[Texashiker]

Market division is not covered anywhere in 18 U.S.C. § 1961–1968 (the "RICO act"). This was a Sherman 1 antitrust case from beginning to end.

ZV

Whatever works is fine with me.

The only thing that will stop this type of behavior is to make examples out of people.

Send a few dozen CEOs to prison for a decade or more, and the word will spread.

 

[Aharami]

OKAY WE GET IT. YOU ARE ANTI IMMIGRANTS... DAMN IT BOOMER GET OFF OF ATOT

😉


Lowercase.

not saying that you're incorrect, but I dont see anything about immigration in the OP.

 

[Zenmervolt]

Not naive at all. The idea behind a class-action lawsuit is good. Unfortunately, like I said, the only ones who really benefit from them is the attorneys. The company pays through the nose and the consumer gets a pittance...or a 50 cent coupon.
That's why I say all class-action lawsuits are stupid...they're only designed to enrich the lawyers.

While attorneys benefit more than any other individual player, you're completely ignoring the massive social benefits that are reaped by being able to effectively punish companies for creating millions of tiny harms.

The point of class actions is not to provide a windfall to consumers; the point is to provide a disincentive for companies to engage in this sort of behavior. Even if the monetary award were simply burned afterwards and no-one got anything, the disincentive would still exist for the company and class action suits would still serve an important purpose. This is especially true when the individual damages are too small to allow the individual cases to be brought in federal court.

Again, saying that there is room for improvement in how the damages award is distributed is fine; I'm right there with you. But I stand firm behind my comment that to say that the suits are "stupid" is naive beyond belief. I'll go further and say that such a claim also displays a very basic lack of understanding of the purposes of class action law.

ZV

 

[Texashiker]

the point is to provide a disincentive for companies to engage in this sort of behavior.

The "disincentive" should be time in prison, and not a slap on the bank account.

Cheat a few million customers out of a few dollars each, and get fined?

Cheat a few million customers out of a few dollars each, and spend 20 years in prison?

Which one would stop unethical behavior?

 

[Zenmervolt]

The "disincentive" should be time in prison, and not a slap on the bank account.

Cheat a few million customers out of a few dollars each, and get fined?

Cheat a few million customers out of a few dollars each, and spend 20 years in prison?

Which one would stop unethical behavior?

On that theory, why not 10 years in prison for shoplifting a candy bar? Obviously this is hyperbole, but the logical process (monetary penalties are ineffective compared to imprisonment) is the same.

20 years in prison also imposes some pretty massive costs to society; it's very, very expensive to keep someone in prison.

It also grossly underestimates the value that companies place on profits and on not having to deal with lawsuits (even ones that are settled). For example, antitrust judgments aren't simply a fixed amount; the amount of the penalty is equal to three times the profit from the act. It's literally impossible to say, "I'll make more than the penalty so it's OK" because the penalty is, by definition, three times whatever you make.

The only way a person would knowingly get into an antitrust situation like this is if they never believed they would get caught. And if they had absolutely no expectation of being caught, then the penalty doesn't matter because the person cannot be deterred.

ZV

 

[Texashiker]

On that theory, why not 10 years in prison for shoplifting a candy bar? Obviously this is hyperbole, but the logical process (monetary penalties are ineffective compared to imprisonment) is the same.

Stealing a candy bar from a million stores, sure, 10 years in prison sounds good to me.

Whoever would steal a candy bar from a million stores is sick in the head and needs to be locked away from society.

That is the same comparison isn't it? We are not talking about about a single candy bar from a single store. We are talking about a pathological thief that steals from millions of businesses.

What is the difference in a thief walking through a shopping mall stealing from every store, and a business stealing from every customer?

The only difference is the person is a physical entity that the police can put their hands on, and a business is an idea.

With the government fining the business, the only thing being punished is an idea or a thought. Its impossible to punish something that does not exist. The people that bring the idea into the real world should be punished for their actions.

 

[Zenmervolt]

What is the difference in a thief walking through a shopping mall stealing from every store, and a business stealing from every customer?

I'm sorry, but I thought we were talking about antitrust actions against businesses where customers are voluntarily purchasing a product.

A business actually stealing from people, that is, taking property by force when the customer doesn't want to enter into the transaction, is an entirely different scenario that I'm not addressing. If you want to engage on the actual topic of market segmentation and antitrust, I'm happy to keep talking about that, but I'm not going to follow your red herring.

The theory is not that individuals are damaged by antitrust violations but that society suffers because the product is not available at a lower price where more people would purchase it. The impetus is to increase competition and increase the accessibility of the product, not to reimburse people who paid the higher price.

ZV

 

[Zenmervolt]

With the government fining the business, the only thing being punished is an idea or a thought. Its impossible to punish something that does not exist. The people that bring the idea into the real world should be punished for their actions.

Yes. Because the people who cause their company to bleed red ink because of antitrust fines that are three time higher than profits won't get fired or otherwise disciplined by their companies at all. And they certainly aren't concerned about the substantial negative effect on stock value either...

If you honestly think that a company is going to continue taking actions that have negative NPV just for kicks, you're insane.

ZV

 

[Texashiker]

I'm sorry, but I thought we were talking about antitrust actions against businesses where customers are voluntarily purchasing a product.

You are right, sorry about that, I derailed this thread a little bit.

As for "where customers are voluntarily purchasing a product." could that be considered theft by deception?

If customers were duped into buying a product they did not want, isn't that they same thing as being conned?

Yes. Because the people who cause their company to bleed red ink because of antitrust fines that are three time higher than profits won't get fired or otherwise disciplined by their companies at all.

Didn't the banks get bailed out in 2008, and the CEOs still got massive bonuses?

But yes, I understand your point. In most situations people are fired over losing money.

 

[Zenmervolt]

You are right, sorry about that, I derailed this thread a little bit.

As for "where customers are voluntarily purchasing a product." could that be considered theft by deception?

If customers were duped into buying a product they did not want, isn't that they same thing as being conned?

Deliberate mislabeling and deceptive advertising is, again, different from antitrust.

While I do believe there should be prison terms for deliberate and dangerously deceptive labeling (a hyperbolic example would be labeling a full gas can as a fire extinguisher), a lot of "deceptive" labeling isn't a clear line (the hyperbolic example in the other direction is the law suit against "Froot Loops" for not containing any fruit). So there's a need in those cases, I believe, for judicial discretion.

ZV