Where else can one person get rich while suing over the pain and suffering of a whole group of people while the damaged people get a coupon or a discount for their trouble.
It’s only a small stretch to imagine Starbucks getting sued by mermaids because real mermaids don’t have split tails and the Starbucks logo has damaged every mermaid’s self image. Starbucks would agree to give 1 Free Short Size Iced Coffee and a coupon for 20% off any purchase to every offended customer and agree to pay $13.7 million dollars in attorneys’ fees. The attorneys make out like bandits while people who love mermaids and the actual mermaids themselves get a coupon that they could have gotten anyway just by going to retailmenot.com.
If you consider the barrage of real-world lawsuits like outlandish and ridiculous breast implant lawsuits that bankrupted a company over a false claim, tobacco lawsuits that killed an industry because people choose to smoke, and the never ending lead and asbestos, you’ll find that class-action lawsuits are a multi-billion dollar industry.
At least a few times a year, I get a notice of some class action lawsuit I’m a party to. Amazon did this or Apple did that. The big print says I’ll get a $10 refund in the form of a coupon and the small print says the lawyers get rich. Great deal, if you can get – being a class action lawyer, that is.