Class action cases can be tricky. While your law firm is often focused on legal strategies to get the case dismissed, fraudulent class members can oftentimes opt into the class when there is a possibility of a large payout. This is especially apparent in medical device class action defense because the number of class members can often exceed the known failure rate for the device. This results in there being a larger class size, larger potential settlement, and costing your client potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional payouts to these fraudulent class members.
The problem is magnified when it comes to evaluating options to weed this fraudulent class members out. If your law firm was to do the investigation to see if these potential class members qualify, the cost could be astronomical for your attorneys or staff search these hundreds or thousands of potential class members. But if you don’t properly investigate the class, it will cost your client a hefty payout and may invite more fraudulent class members and additional class action claims against your client in the future. So, how can your law firm combat fraud in class action defense cases?
By working with SMI Aware. SMI Aware’s team of independent social media investigation experts will scour social media and the web to locate and investigate each potential class member. SMI Aware will then separate those potential class members by those who are actually injured and therefore legitimately qualify for the class, those that they may not be sure of based upon the inability to access their profiles or access publicly available information, and most importantly, those fraudulent class members who do not appear to injured based upon their use of your client’s medical device. This results in some major competitive advantages for your law firm and your client.
By focusing your time, energy, and effort on expelling only those fraudulent class members or ones who might not qualify, your law firm can make the proper strategic decisions by not spending time, energy, effort, and resources on those legitimate class members. By focusing your efforts only on these likely fraudulent class members, you can reduce the potential class size and reduce the potential settlement for your client without incur substantial costs for your client.
More importantly, this practice may dissuade potential fraudulent class members from joining a class in the future and could also prevent more class action cases being filed against your client because your law firm earns a reputation for properly investigating and weeding our fraudulent class members. This could result in your law firm becoming the go-to class action defense law firm, particularly for medical device litigation.
If your law firm is ready to take your class action defense to the next level, you need to work with SMI Aware. Contact us today to see how we can empower your law firm to become the go-to firm for class action defense.