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Should You Pursue A Class Action To Right Wrongs Affecting Many?

Individuals and entire groups of people often suffer illegal – though not criminal – discrimination in the workplace, ill effects of defective medications and countless other injustices in daily life.

In many cases, one person or just a few affected people will be unable to afford the costs of taking appropriate legal actions, such as funding a necessary investigation to bring a compelling case to court. When numerous fellow employees, consumers or others in a common category suffer the same or similar injustices, a class action lawsuit may be the answer.

At Whitten Burrage in Oklahoma City, our litigators have established a strong reputation for the firm partly through victories in complex litigation cases. Many of these cases have been class actions on behalf of entire groups of people, such as members of Native American tribes.

Who Can Start A Class Action?

The “class” in a class action is a group of people in similar circumstances who share similar ill effects from an injustice. According to Oklahoma law, a class action may be initiated by one or more members as representatives of a class if:

  • The class is so numerous that it is impracticable for all to file a lawsuit
  • Questions of law or fact, as well as claims or defenses, are similar or common for everyone in the class
  • The representative parties can fairly and adequately protect the interests of the class.

When our attorneys evaluate the harm done to someone by an employer or another large organization, we may recommend that the person initiate or join a class action. Whitten Burrage holds the largest class action jury verdict in State history, which was a $130 million verdict.

Our class action attorneys also advise lawyers from other firms who are preparing to bring a class action for a wronged group of people.

Discuss A Potential Class Action With An Experienced Attorney

We welcome the opportunity to advise individuals, groups of people or other attorneys who are interested in creating, joining or helping clients join class actions to bring about justice.

To schedule a consultation, call 888-801-8682 or send an email inquiry.

From Reggie’s interview for the Masters of the Courtroom series on ReelLawyers.com.

View Transcript

yeah I started out my first class

section was for that company I mentioned

biomed it was a class action many years

ago about the propriety of using

titanium and hip implants and this is

back when titanium was first being used

I was on the defense side then tried

that won it when I started doing

plaintiff’s work uh judge Burge and I

came up with the idea of

why couldn’t we bring a bad faith case

in a class action setting and so we

tried that succeeded

and have a published opinion from the

Oklahoma Supreme Court on it actually

and judge Burridge has a lot of cases

pending now and has settled a bunch of

them where we represent royalty owners

oil and gas royalty owners who have been

underpaid or overcharged in their

royalty fees

so we’re doing a good a good deal of

class actions now

they’ve been portrayed in the media and

in the press as cases where people just

get nothing and the lawyers get all the

money that’s that’s not accurate at all

we’ve never done a coupon settlement

ever our clients if they are successful

in settling or winning the case they get

real money these are always complex they

always take a long time but the reason

we have class actions this is the reason

there are companies in this country

today that have learned if you will

cheat people a relatively small amount

of money

you can kind of go under the radar and

people won’t fight you because it’s a

relatively small amount of money but

it’s the same kind of systemic cheating

across the board so you’re not just

cheating one person you’re cheating tens

of thousands of people and the goal of

these companies is that nobody will want

to fight City Hall and swim upstream

that hard for a relatively small amount

of money but the companies are overall

they’re cheating tens of millions of

dollars in some cases hundreds of

millions of dollars a class action is

the best remedy because you can try one

person’s case

and that case will dispose of of the

case for all of the people who are

similarly situated it is a device that’s

been Incorporated in the statutes both

at the federal and the state level for a

long time and when it’s used

appropriately It’s a Wonderful tool

there’s no substitute for it and it’s

the only way some people who get cheated

these small amounts of money can ever

recover