Any proceeding or suit brought by one or more members of a large group on behalf of the other members of the group. It permits one or more person to sue or to be sued as a representative of a large group. Class action wasn’t practiced as much before. It had few advantages and concerns as well. Class action members would receive very little or no benefits from the case. Paying a large number of fees is not suitable when you’re receiving little compensation. With the change in certain rules, class actions have become more common in practice now. Engineers and architects often face class action claims owing to their nature of work. These claims are known to be very extensive in nature since they bring in the claims of various group members. Class actions, however, cannot resolve all the claims that are against the engineers or the defendants. Delay claims like late approvals, licensing and permit problems, acceleration claims, Constructive acceleration, Construction changes are …show more content…
It was assessed on whether the claim was for dependency and injury or economic loss and property damage i.e. I-D claims and ELPD claims. The SDS includes the legal costs incurred on behalf of the group. This would be extracted from the overall settlement. It divides the settlement funds as three-eighths to cover the personal injury and dependency claims and 5/8ths for economic loss and property ownership claims. There are limits on the percentage for compensation for personal injury and dependency. the remaining was to be rolled over the property damage and economic loss funds. This also adds to the recovery rate for all those claims. To breakdown, SPI was to pay $378.6 million, UAM contributed $12.5 million. The state parties were also to pay $103.6 million for personal injury and dependency