Plaintiffs’ lawyers and class actions have been the “whipping boy” of the tort reform movement for far too long. Indeed, the drum has been beaten so consistently during the past decade that it is now accepted as truth in many quarters that only trial lawyers (and their nefarious lobby) get anything of value from these lawsuits. What this perspective deliberately ignores is the litany of cases in which private lawyers step in when regulators abdicate their responsibilities. It also ignores how often the “little guy” who has been wronged would never have gotten his day in court without the ability to join with others who have been similarly wronged.
Consider the payment of approximately $1.1 billion that merchants received at the end of last year as part of a landmark antitrust settlement with Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. At a time of continuing economic distress, with retailers struggling through another difficult holiday season, hundreds of thousands of merchants shared in the equivalent of a billion-dollar stimulus package. Indeed, with retail industry margins hovering around 5%, U.S. merchants would have had to generate more than $20 billion in additional revenue to make this kind of profit.
