There are two core aspects of U.S. law; the public interest actions and the class actions.
Public interest actions are actions where it was thought that most of the time, it is considered that the plaintiff is the person who could allege the infringement of a legal right of his own had the necessary “standing” to bring civil procedures . This means, that for all practical purposes, the plaintiff must make some damage to himself so that there would be no “unselfish” litigation. However, in 1940, the legality of the grant of a license was challenged by a radio station. The license would be given to a rival radio station. It was highly unlikely that the motivation was selfish, and the legislation was not intended to protect radio stations …show more content…
The definition of a class action lawsuit is better described in Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U.S. 32 (1940):
“A class action is a procedural device that permits one or more plaintiffs to file and prosecute a lawsuit on behalf of a larger group, or “class”. Put simply, the device allows courts to manage lawsuits that would otherwise be unmanageable if each class member (individuals who have suffered the same wrong at the hands of the defendant) were required to be joined in the lawsuit as a named …show more content…
Originally, class actions were only available in Equity, which meant that no damages were paid, representative litigation of parties that were very big was authorized by a Supreme Court Equity Rule of 1842. However, an absent party was also not bound by the Court’s decision. This was leter replaced by The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 1938, that made the rule less restrictive but more complex. The rule was then rewritten once more in 1966 and it says that a class may be authorized if the “class” is too big for all its members to join, where there are questions of law or fact common to the class, where the claims or defenses of the representative parties are typical of those of the class, and where the representative parties will fairly protect the interests of the class. Needless to say, the popularity of class actions skyrocketed in 1966. When the rules of a class action are met, a class action will be authorized under three