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are given adequate notice of their eligibility to file. behalf of those in affected industries, especially
Claims administration is a variable practice, and those in hospitality: we gathered and organized
administrators use a variety of physical and digital purchase records and invoices, contacted claims
formats to reach out to potential claimants. The administrators to clarify exactly what they required
requirements for notifying all relevant parties differ to verify our clients’ membership in the plaintiff
depending on the case. For instance, this may class, and, uniquely to this case, we did intensive
include publishing an announcement in a national work, based on product usage and turnover
newspaper, or distributing a mailing electronically rates, to project reasonable estimates of clients’
that could conceivably land in a person’s spam spending on polyurethane products when clients
folder where it may not be seen in time. had gaps in their documentation. For this, we had
to mobilize dense industry knowledge and data. It
Cases took a serious allocation of time to do this on behalf
Before discussing best practices for setting of hundreds of large clients, but we succeeded in
your company up to claim funds due from class securing funds for almost all of them.
action settlements – and some of the difficulties Importantly, in this case, scale mattered for
involved in this process – let’s discuss some of our the damages secured. While individual consumers
own recent cases to define what makes a company would have been entitled to a nominal amount of
successful in securing these claims. the settlement pool – basically a symbolic restitution
In 2016, after litigation that began in – the damages reclaimed by our clients were
2014, an Ohio judge ruled in favor of a certified profound. This case illustrates that class actions on
class against a consortium of manufacturers the business and corporate side are vastly different
of polyurethane foam, used most commonly in and frequently much more remunerative than those
mattresses and other furniture products. The on the consumer side – though filing their claims
manufacturers were alleged to have colluded to is, concomitantly, a much more time-intensive
fix prices. With our mandate to find all possible process.
savings for our clients, we sprang into action on Imagine the difference, for instance, in
“It requires vigilance to be aware
of pertinent suits in the first place,
and it takes a major investment
in time to develop a plan for filing
claims in relation to the expectations
and requirements of claims
administrators.”
© 2018 SIB Fixed Cost Reduction • PAGE 4
