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Calabresi, Guido --- "Class Actions in the US Experience: The Legal Perspective" [2012] ELECD 301; in Backhaus, G. Jürgen; Cassone, Alberto; Ramello, B. Giovanni (eds), "The Law and Economics of Class Actions in Europe" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: The Law and Economics of Class Actions in Europe

Editor(s): Backhaus, G. Jürgen; Cassone, Alberto; Ramello, B. Giovanni

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847208033

Section: Chapter 2

Section Title: Class Actions in the US Experience: The Legal Perspective

Author(s): Calabresi, Guido

Number of pages: 17

Extract:

2. Class actions in the U.S. experience:
the legal perspective
Hon. Guido Calabresi

A couple of days ago, literally as I was about to leave for this conference, I
received two cheques in the mail, one for sixty dollars and ninety-eight
cents and the other for six dollars and twelve cents. They were my shares of
a class action suit brought against my insurance agent. This was originally a
local agent who had bought insurance for me on most all I have ­ from my
house to my car to everything else. The insurance agent many years earlier
had been bought by a national company. I hardly knew any of this, but
someone had brought a class action suit against the national company,
claiming, apparently correctly, that these agents (who are supposed to be
my agents) instead of presenting me with the various available insurances at
the lowest prices were simply signing up me ­ and people all over the United
States ­ with those who gave the agents the greatest profit margins. The suit
successfully led the national company to settle very quickly.
I was a bit aware of the existence of this suit; I sort of knew of it, but
barely. Until the suit, I had not known of these practices of the agent. And,
to this day, I have no idea what proportion sixty dollars and ninety-eight
cents, for one thing, and six dollars and twelve cents, for another, were of
the extra charges that I had ...