As of 2002, the city of Seattle had paid over $ 200, 000 in settlements of lawsuits filed against the Seattle Police Department for assault and wrongful arrest, with a class action lawsuit still pending.

In law, a class action, a class suit, or a representative action is a form of lawsuit in which a large group of people collectively bring a claim to court and / or in which a class of defendants is being sued.

Class actions are commonly referred to as class action suits ; however, this phrase is redundant as the historical distinction between " actions " at law and " suits " in equity is no longer recognized.

The procedure for filing a class action is to file suit with one or several named plaintiffs on behalf of a proposed class.

Typically these cases result from an action on the part of a business or a particular product defect or policy that applied to all proposed class members in a typical manner.

Upon the motion to certify the class, the defendants may object to whether the issues are appropriately handled as a class action, to whether the named plaintiffs are sufficiently representative of the class, and to their relationship with the law firm or firms handling the case.

Due process requires in most cases that notice describing the class action be sent, published, or broadcast to class members.

In federal civil procedure law, which has also been accepted by approximately 35 states ( through adoption of state civil procedure rules similar to the federal rules ), the class action must have certain definite characteristics ( often referred to by the acronym CANT ):

# Numerosity — the class must be so large as to make individual suits impractical ( in other words, that the class action is a superior vehicle for resolution than numerous individual suits ), and

The ancestor of the class action was what modern observers call " group litigation ," which appears to have been quite common in medieval England from about 1200 onward.

The oldest predecessor to the class action rule was Equity Rule 48, promulgated in 1833, which allowed for representative suits in situations where there were too many individual parties ( which now forms the first requirement for class action litigation, numerosity ).

A major revision of the FRCP in 1966 radically transformed Rule 23, made the opt-out class action the standard option, and gave birth to the modern class action.

Since stock in closed-end funds is traded like other stock, an investor trading them will pay a brokerage commission similar to that paid when trading other stocks ( as opposed to commissions on open-ended mutual funds, where the commission will vary based on the share class chosen and the method of purchasing the fund ).

Alternatively, financial instruments can be categorized by " asset class " depending on whether they are equity based ( reflecting ownership of the issuing entity ) or debt based ( reflecting a loan the investor has made to the issuing entity ).

The tower was constructed between 1917 and 1921 as part of the Memorial Quadrangle donated to Yale by Anna M. Harkness in honor of her recently deceased son, Charles William Harkness, Yale class of 1883, and the second son of Stephen V. Harkness, an early investor in the company that became Standard Oil.

The U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission ( SEC ) has considered a change to the definition of " accredited investor " to create a new class of potential investors: " accredited natural persons ".

* July 2009 -- Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins LLP filed a US District Court class action lawsuit against Synovus Financial Corp. on behalf of an institutional investor, alleging that the defendants harmed Synovus investors by failing to disclose its exposure to the Sea Island Company and " the deteriorating condition of Sea Island ".

* Dean Mathey, class of 1908, investor who made millions for Princeton University.

According to his most recent firm resume, in addition to practicing oil and gas litigation, O ’ Neill obtained one of the largest securities arbitration judgments in history representing a small-time investor who had been defrauded by a large securities company, and also successfully represented a class of immigrants in a suit against Fiesta, allowing them to recover their money when the savings and loan went under.

This container shipping company, also a principal investor in China Airlines, brought the company much needed capital, since the company had financial problems at this time, partly due to a class action lawsuit involving faulty capacitors on their products., but also because of marketing highly technical products to the general public while offering longer-than-average warranties and generous return policies.

In investor news, shareholders approved the formation of a holding company, Lincoln Electric Holdings, Inc. With this transition came a conversion from dual class stock ( voting and non-voting ) to a single-class, all voting stock.

The trust, at its creation, issued a class A certificate to the private sector investor evidencing its ownership interest in the Trust, and a class B certificate to the RTC evidencing its ownership interest.

* NASD rule 12204 of 1992, which allows investor class actions to proceed in federal court nullifies arbitration agreements when class certification is sought, is not preempted.

In a utilitarian age like ours it is safe to assume that the real-estate owner and the investor in buildings will continue to erect the class of buildings from which the greatest possible revenue can be obtained with the least possible outlay ... The purpose of erecting buildings other than those required for the shelter of their owners is specifically that of making investments for profit.

In January, 2012, the lawsuit against Eden Memorial Park was ruled to be a valid class action in Los Angeles Superior Court, with the trial scheduled to begin in May 2012.

In the US state of California, Nutella's manufacturer Ferrero, was sued in a class action lawsuit and agreed to pay $ 3 million ( up to $ 4. 00 per jar in returns by customers ) in a settlement in which Nutella's misleading promotion led consumers to believe that Nutella carries nutritional and health benefits, marketing it as part of a nutritious breakfast.

Despite the fact the US Supreme Court eventually ruled against the class action plaintiffs, the lawsuit helped bring the Japanese American case for redress and reparations to public awareness.

Where a class action lawsuit is brought, with one named plaintiff actually representing the interests of many others, the case will not become moot even if the named plaintiff ceases to belong to the class that is seeking a remedy.

Melbourne woman Lynette Rowe, who was born without limbs, is leading an Australian class action lawsuit against the drug's manufacturer, Grünenthal, which fought to have the case heard in Germany.

A class action lawsuit filed on April 20, 2001 accused Cisco of making misleading statements that " were relied on by purchasers of Cisco stock " and of insider trading.

On April 3, 2008, The U. S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit threw out a $ 800 billion class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of a group or class of people who smoked light cigarettes.

On March 2, 2004, Fujitsu Computer Products of America lost a class action lawsuit over hard disk drives with defective chips and firmware.

In December 2007, a class action lawsuit was brought against student loan lending giant Sallie Mae in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, alleging that Sallie Mae discriminated against African American and Hispanic private student loan applicants.

In 1999, the USDA settled a class action lawsuit ( Pigford v. Glickman ) alleging discrimination against African-American farmers in the late twentieth century.

In 2007, the firm agreed to pay $ 46 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought by eight female brokers.

Morgan Stanley settled a class action lawsuit on March 2, 2006.

The first class was graduated in 1826, receiving their degrees only after the disposition of a lawsuit seeking to close the school.

At first the parents are reluctant to do so, but eventually they are persuaded by the lawyer that filing a class action lawsuit would ease their minds and also be the right thing to do.

The complaint was boilerplate class action language but revolved entirely around the copyright lawsuit and subsequent stock price decline.

A 1970 class action lawsuit was filed by Ms. Genoveva Morales on behalf of her children against the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District.

A class action lawsuit by the residents forced the promoters to build the Lobo Hotel.

However, a class action lawsuit alleging that the accident caused detrimental health effects was rejected by Harrisburg U. S. District Court Judge Sylvia Rambo.

A class action lawsuit to stop the use of photo enforcement in Ridgeland was filed in federal court in 2010. and the cameras have since been ordered removed.