Pleading Ignorance: “You May be Owed Money!”

August 7th, 2009. By AbiK

If that doesn’t sound like the quintessential come-on, I don’t know what does. And it’s t.v. ads blaring that phrase that give some lawyers and the law biz a bit of a weird rep. But don’t blame the law profession, blame their ad agencies. Why? Because there’s actually some truth behind the statement that you may be owed money.

This week’s Pleading Ignorance looks at…

What is Unclaimed Settlement Money?

The strange thing about a class action is that many people are typically affected—in fact, having numerous plaintiffs is a requirement for something to be a class action. But, if there’s a settlement from a class action, many times a good portion of the settlement monies just sits there.

Why is that? There are many reasons, but typically monies sit because:

1. the notification of the class action was communicated—it just wasn’t obvious; it may have been buried in an ad in the back of a newspaper
2. the notification of the class action was a piece of mail that was incomprehensible and a bunch of legalese that wound up in the garbage
3. if it involves stock, the potential class member may have moved or switched brokers, thereby not receiving notification in the mail; also, if the potential class member physically holds the stock certificates, he may not have been alerted to his eligibility to participate in the class action.

Unless you’ve specifically elected to opt out of a class action, you may be eligible for part of a monetary settlement that you weren’t even aware of. And note, class action lawsuits are filed in federal court, not state court—so when you see those “Unclaimed Property” listings in the local paper, class action settlements won’t show up there.

What to do? Turn off the annoying t.v. ads and bookmark this page—you can always check here to see what class actions have settled, what the settlements are, and who to contact. Hey, you never know…

Tags: Pleading Ignorance, Settlements

This was posted on Friday, August 7th, 2009 at 1:03 pm and is filed under Pleading Ignorance . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.