Had a professor in a business law class who was a retired judge - and he had a rule of thumb when it came to class action suits: 1,000 cases to get a firm interested in starting class action litigation and 10,000 cases to get a firm interested in going all the way to a court ordered judgment once class action has been approved by a court.
Class action costs law firms BIG MONEY and most can't take that risk. Their legal fee is all contingency, so if they don't prove their case, they get paid NOTHING. Not many firms like accepting contingency fee if they aren't confident in a slam dunk.
Age discrimination: there just aren't enough Couriers out there that are over 50 and can DEMONSTRATE discrimination based solely on their age and NOT some other feature/issue. Poor health of someone over 50 doesn't constitute age discrimination. There has to be a SYSTEMATIC method of either eliminating employees due SOLELY to their age or some other non-performance related issue, to gain traction for age discrimination. We all know the net effect of the new health insurance plan that is coming out, but that doesn't PROVE an intent to get rid of older employees and hire younger employees to replace them.
Injuries: Again, the numbers just aren't there for any firm to really take an interest in seeking class action status for those who are injured and quickly lose their employment as a result. Something like this is handled by litigation with the claimant suing their employer as an individual (not as a class), and more often than not, seeking an out of court settlement. This is one way corporations keep from having a 'snowball effect' gather momentum against them. They pay off the REALLY serious cases, throw a non-disclosure clause on the settlement (in exchange for a little extra cash), and that claimant's 'story' goes away - never to haunt the company again. The snowball never gets really big and the corporation avoids getting hit with the whammy of class action litigation.
This is somewhat analogous to the question that is constantly asked here, "Why doesn't the IBT just step in and save us all"????
Short answer: Money - just not enough to catch their interest and the odds of winning (given the 'terrain' of the Couriers' mindset towards organizing), is slim to none.
I think you all understand better why that lawyer had the 'Examiner" web page up now - he was trolling for potential cases. Funny thing was, he gave up private practice, became an administrative law judge then for whatever reason, posted HERE that he WASN'T 'trolling' for clients. Must of had some questions raised about his activities prior to becoming an administrative law judge. Funny how that works...
