Lawyers for the transportation giant made a last-ditch effort to have a class-action lawsuit thrown out of court. But customers may have effectively stopped that from happening.<\/p>\n
When the coronavirus pandemic hit, United cancelled flights right and left.<\/p>\n
Instead of issuing refunds, the airline gave ticketholders vouchers for future travel. In a court filing, the plaintiffs said the true reason United cancelled flights was to \u201cstem financial losses<\/a> due to decreased demand\u201d.<\/p>\n United\u2019s lawyers maintain that COVID-19 is the classic force majeure event and that a provision in the April 2020 CARES Act allowed it to issue vouchers instead of refunds.<\/p>\n United received about $5 billion in government assistance through the CARES Act.<\/p>\n In more bad news on the legal front, at least for United Airlines, a separate group of plaintiffs claimed that United\u2019s discounts for travelers aged 18 to 22 violated California\u2019s age discrimination prohibition.<\/p>\n Class action lawsuits allow individual plaintiffs, like airline ticket holders, to face off against huge defendants, like airlines.<\/p>\n Normally, David vs. Goliath faceoffs like these end very badly for David. But in class action lawsuits, since individual plaintiffs pool their resources, life often mirrors fairy tales.<\/p>\n Many civil claims settle out of court<\/a>. These settlements hasten the outcome and give the parties more control over the result.<\/p>\n But before settlement negotiations begin in earnest, at least in most class actions, they must clear two major procedural hurdles.<\/p>\n Federal Rules of Procedure 12(b)(6) allows judges to throw cases out of court before all the pleadings are even filed, for \u201cfailure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.\u201d 12(b)(6) usually applies if there is no legal or factual basis for the action.<\/p>\n Despite the general settlement timeline mentioned above, a few class actions might settle very early in the process, even before the judge rules on a motion to dismiss due to failure to state a claim.<\/p>\n However, the defendant usually only offers the nuisance value.<\/p>\n The settlement amount must usually be less than the value of negative publicity associated with the lawsuit. That\u2019s usually not very much money, at least at this early stage.<\/p>\n This area is a factor in other civil settlements as well, such as personal injury claims. Everyone wants to settle cases as quickly as possible.<\/p>\nProcedural Motions in Federal Court and What They Mean<\/h2>\n