The court may choose to award attorneys\u2019 fees to the representatives of a victorious class action suit. Further, it may allow the victorious party to recover these fees from its opponent \u201cif justice requires.\u201d<\/p>\n

Notice<\/h4>\n

Reasonable notice of the commencement of a class action suit, given in the manner directed by the court, is the standard set by the statute. The cost of giving notice will be incurred by the plaintiff, absent the court instructing otherwise.<\/p>\n

What about injunctive or declaratory relief?<\/h4>\n

For a class action suit seeking injunctive or declaratory relief, there is no requirement to give notice of the pending suit to nonparty members of the class. Two criteria must be met for notice to be required. It must be necessary to protect the class and the cost of the notice may not act as a barrier to the class action suit going forward. The court has even indicated that notice may need to be given to every member of a class, at the expense of the plaintiff, as a matter of constitutional due process. This requirement surpasses the scope of the relevant federal class action provision.<\/p>\n

Can one opt out of a class action suit?<\/h4>\n

Notice to the members includes the implicit provision of the statutory scheme that a class member may request to be excluded from the class action. For actions in money damages for which the court lacks personal jurisdiction, this right is guaranteed to class members by due process. Personal jurisdiction means the constitutional authority which is conferred on or recognized as existing for a court or judge to announce the sentence of the law or award the remedies it provides based upon a state of facts.<\/p>\n

Yet, no such due process right is afforded a foreign state member of a class in an action which primarily seeks equitable relief, which is a remedy provided by the court requiring that a party act or refrain from performing a certain action. This may owe itself to the court\u2019s desire in such a case to avoid multiple and inconsistent judgements.<\/p>\n

[author_and_contact_info]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is a class action suit? A judgement given in a class action suit is binding on all members of the class, irrespective of whether they are specifically named as parties to the suit. One or more members of the class may sue or be sued on behalf of all. Of course, due process must…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[630],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-york-corporate-law"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n