class action

In law, a court procedure where one or more claimants represent a larger group of people who are all making the same kind of claim against the same defendant. The court's decision is binding on all the members of the group.

This procedure is often used in the USA. The same effect is sometimes achieved in out‐of‐court settlements in Britain, for example the Opren case 1987, when a large number of people claimed damages as a result of harmful side effects of the drug Opren.

It was settled on the basis that the members of the Opren Action Group would receive a global sum out of which the individual claims would be met, all members of the group then being bound not to take any further action.