I’ve participated in all class action cases that you can find, and you can too

“A lot of people probably have claims, but the bills are worth quite a bit of money. Maybe they each lost $25? Companies can make a lot of money by raising a lot of $25,” she says. “But individually, do you go to court for $25? Forget it.” So, class action.

For centuries, class action lawsuits in some form have been part of US law. In 1820, the debate over the property of the deceased general; Westv. Randall, However, it is widely considered at first Brown v. Education Committee, The end of the legal separation in 1954 is perhaps the best known example. She believes their prevalence is a function of the American court system with fewer barriers to entry than many others, including many lower court filing fees, advertising options for lawyers, and accidental legal representatives (widely regulated or completely prohibited in many other countries).

“If there’s a law-oriented system, there are a lot of lawyers and there’s a way for people to find lawyers, there’s a way for lawyers to make money by taking people’s cases, even if they don’t have much money,” says Hensler. “Then when some issues arise, like Facebook privacy, there are lawyers who say, ‘That’s funny, maybe I can file a class action lawsuit.’ ”

Because legal precedents are so complicated, Hensler says there are many laws in the book that allow you to file a class action lawsuit for everything, from the aforementioned privacy violations to recent class actions. JGG v. Trumpan order that the Trump administration ignored when a judge ordered a Venezuelan man to turn back to deportation.

“The current cases are replacing people who claim that they are being treated illegally by the Trump administration,” says Hensler. “They are trying to get them to say, ‘Stop this’,’ not just for one person, but for all people like them. ”

Aside from its use in recent immigration cases, class actions as a legal tool are actually a bit difficult. The Class Action Fairness Act, signed into law by the Bush administration in 2005, made it easier for defendants to move their cases from the state level to federal court.

Instead, plaintiffs’ lawyers shifted to large torts, large litigation and multilateral litigation, which involves adjusting a large number of individual claims rather than trying to prove a single class. In the pre-internet era, many claimants have come together when they become sisyphean. 2025, it’s almost smooth sailing.

“The fundamental problem is that modern society is creating a lot of injuries, a lot of complaints, a lot of everything,” says Hensler. “In this country we’ve done a pretty good job of coming up with steps to address this ‘large claim’ phenomenon.

What should not be difficult to understand is that class or mass action notifications continue to come, regardless of the particular legal action. It’s people like Phelps and I keep scanning social media and checking spam folders. Maybe in a few more years, I’ll get notifications about another $40. Until then, I will continue scrolling, filing and quietly cashing. Because if companies can benefit from our data, habits and mistakes, what we can do is pay them back when they get ruined.

That’s not justice. To be precise, it’s only the versions that remain in a slow, flawed, and monetized system. But until something better comes, I don’t leave free money at the table. Neither should be.