How long does a Group Action case take?

I know this may be a bit of an unfortunate answer, but it really does depend on the action!

But the purpose of this blog can be helpful to give you an insight in to how long a Group Action case could take, and why this may be the case.

Every Group Action is different, and with sometimes thousands of people being involved in them, it is common for Group Action cases to take some time.

Some of the things that may dictate the length of a Group Action case can be:

Whether liability can be easily established

If the opponent could have a viable defence, they will probably use it. If they could try and defend the claims and save potentially thousands or millions of pounds in damages, they probably will.

On the other hand, if liability is practically established, this can mean they may be enticed in to an easy commercial settlement before the legal costs of fighting them could be set to go very high indeed.

The volume of people affected and / or claiming

If it’s just a few hundred people claiming, then the overall loss to the opponent may be small. This could be an enticement to settle the cases early.

However, on the other hand, if there are thousands of people claiming, they may want to try and defend the action because the overall cost of the action could be quite substantial; even if liability is easy to establish!

Whether there are potentially multiple Defendants (i.e. multiple parties at fault)

In some Group Action cases there may be multiple people to claim from.

The PIP Breast Implant scandal is a good example of this, as there were loads of clinics in the UK who used the PIP implants, meaning different people had claims against different Defendants. This can complicate matters and there may be differences in views between Defendants, and / or there may be issue with some having adequate insurance, or money to settle claims, etc.

How long ago ‘incidents’ or procedures may have occurred

If it’s a group action from a period of people buying something in a one year period but over 10 years ago, this could affect the cases. Evidence and documentation may no longer exist, or companies may no longer be trading.

It can make effectively pursuing cases very difficult indeed.

The value of claims

If claims on an individual basis could be worth tens of thousands of pounds each, this can affect whether the opponent may be tempted to settle or not.

The higher the value of claims, the more likely they may be to try and defend the cases to avoid paying out.

Combining factors

It isn’t just about the individual factors above. When you combine them, they can dictate the length of claims. For example:

• A Group Action of 100 people with claims each worth £500 is only going to cost £50,000.00 in damages. This isn’t a lot in relative terms.
• But, let’s say we have 1000 people, claiming, and each claim is worth £10,000.00 each. That’s 10,000,000.00 (ten million) pounds for the damages alone…

You can see why settling a Group Action in the sum of £50,000.00 quickly before legal fees get racked up is way more tempting than settling an action that could cost over £10m!

So, to answer the question:

It’s going to depend entirely on the factors mentioned above. Small Group Actions where liability is easy to establish and values of claims are low can mean a quicker settlement; but larger Group Actions with higher damages and a possible defence to claims can take longer.

All in all, most will at least last two years.