Mass tort vs class action.

Structural differences

• Class action. One lawsuit, class representatives, court-approved class definition, court-approved settlement allocation plan. Class members typically receive notice and have opt-out rights but no individual case file.
• Mass tort. Each plaintiff has their own lawsuit with their own complaint, plaintiff fact sheet, damages, and counsel. Cases are consolidated in an MDL for discovery and pretrial; bellwether trials test theories before global settlement.

Why drug and device cases cannot be classes

FRCP 23(b)(3) requires that common questions predominate over individual ones. In a drug or device case, individual exposure (dose, duration, when prescribed), individual causation (alternative explanations for the injury), and individual damages defeat predominance. Courts have repeatedly refused to certify drug and device classes. Mass torts are the procedural answer.

Per-plaintiff recovery comparison

Class actions for small individual losses (data breaches, consumer fraud) commonly produce per-class-member payments of $25 to $500. Mass tort matrix settlements scaled to individual injury commonly produce $25,000 to $1M+ per qualifying plaintiff. The reason is the underlying injury severity, not the procedure itself; but the procedure is what allows individualized valuation.

When class actions are the right vehicle

Consumer fraud, securities, data breach, antitrust, and TCPA cases where individual losses are too small to litigate alone. The class action makes litigation economically viable by aggregating thousands of small claims. Personal-injury and product-injury cases with significant individual variation almost never fit.