Topic summary
Class action lawsuit
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Class action.
Description
In a typical class action, a plaintiff sues a defendant or a number of defendants on behalf of a group, or class, of absent parties. This differs from a traditional lawsuit, in which the plaintiffs sue one or more defendants, and all of the parties are present in court. For example, a group in a class action lawsuit could be any person who ever bought a specific dangerous product; in a traditional lawsuit, the plaintiff is a single individual person or business that bought the dangerous product.