Comments on: What To Do With Left-Over Class Action Money http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2007/11/what_to_do_with.html The Law, the Universe, and Everything Sun, 22 Nov 2009 04:22:46 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.3 hourly 1 By: anonymous http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2007/11/what_to_do_with.html/comment-page-1#comment-51471 anonymous Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:52:36 +0000 http://www.solove.org/archives/2007/11/what-to-do-with-left-over-class-action-money.html#comment-51471 It's a good article, and Prof. Issacharoff's proposal (distribute the extra to the plaintiffs) seems to follow as a matter of common sense. Another option might be to treat the extra money similarly to the way the government treats civilly or criminally forfeited property and just keep it for the government. My sole complaint with the article is that it gives no hint of how widespread this scenario is and how much is at stake. All we know is that Prof. Issacharoff is "shocked" at the magnitude. The anecdotes in the article, though, seem pretty bad. I didn't study <i>cy pres</i> much in law school. Perhaps someone who knows more about it can fill me in, but based just on the article, it seems to me that either (1) the whole doctrine is an invitation to the sort of corruption described there, or (2) the doctrine has gotten wildly out of control the "as near as possible" meaning of the words has gotten lost. What possible legitimate reason could a judge have for giving leftover class action settlement money to a law school? It’s a good article, and Prof. Issacharoff’s proposal (distribute the extra to the plaintiffs) seems to follow as a matter of common sense. Another option might be to treat the extra money similarly to the way the government treats civilly or criminally forfeited property and just keep it for the government.

My sole complaint with the article is that it gives no hint of how widespread this scenario is and how much is at stake. All we know is that Prof. Issacharoff is “shocked” at the magnitude.

The anecdotes in the article, though, seem pretty bad. I didn’t study cy pres much in law school. Perhaps someone who knows more about it can fill me in, but based just on the article, it seems to me that either (1) the whole doctrine is an invitation to the sort of corruption described there, or (2) the doctrine has gotten wildly out of control the “as near as possible” meaning of the words has gotten lost. What possible legitimate reason could a judge have for giving leftover class action settlement money to a law school?

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