Sometimes the single action of a large company injures a large number of people. In those cases, it may be more efficient to file a class action lawsuit in which one or two plaintiffs stand in for the entire group. While class action lawsuits are very important, they are also difficult and expensive to carry out. As a result, most law firms prefer not to handle them.

Golomb & Honik is proud to have developed a recognized expertise in this field. We have earned nationwide respect for our mastery of the many details of these cases and for providing the kind of tenacious advocacy that is essential to seeing them through. When other lawyers refer toxic tort, commercial, or consumer cases to us, it is often because of the class action component.

Among the class action suits that we most commonly handle are:

• Consumer Protection
• Medical Monitoring

Read about some of our experiences in this area:

• $7.3 Million Settlement for Misled Students Golomb & Honik represented current and former students who sued a national vocational school, alleging that they had been fraudulently misled as to the education they would receive. Golomb & Honik served as co-lead counsel in this groundbreaking consumer class action, in which plaintiffs and absent national class members sought education from a publicly traded corporation in the field of diagnostic medical sonography. Golomb & Honik succeeded in demonstrating that the chain of schools fraudulently misrepresented the nature of the ultrasound program and otherwise failed to provide the education represented. Students received federally guaranteed student loans but were largely unable to obtain promised jobs in their area of study. The school had no meaningful admissions criteria and often hired unqualified administrative and educational personnel. Field placements did not materialize, and students were unprepared to take qualifying exams. Students were stuck with loan repayments for which they received little or nothing in return. In approving certification of the class, and later the class settlement, the United States District Court said of counsel representing plaintiffs that "[t]he skill of each of these attorneys is reflected both in settlement and in the aggressive manner in which they pursued this litigation from start to finish." 197 F.R.D. at 149. The Court noted in conclusion, "the highly skilled class counsel provided excellent representation both for named plaintiffs and absent class members." Id. The class settlement of $7.3 million was the largest common fund of its kind.
  
• Multi-Million Dollar Settlement in Chemical Exposure Case Golomb & Honik successfully represented dozens of individual workers—and a class of more than 1,000 additional workers—in a case arising from ongoing occupational exposure to sulfur dioxide and sulfur trioxide in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. For more than a decade, workers at an oil processing facility were exposed to emissions of sulfur dioxide and sulfur trioxide gasses from a neighboring plant. Those emissions caused reactive airways disease and occupational asthma in many workers. In addition, many others were exposed and require medical monitoring to detect the potential onset of pulmonary disease. Following years of protracted litigation, and the bankruptcy of the defendant polluter, Golomb & Honik achieved a multi-million dollar settlement against the bankrupt polluter, instead of the pennies on the dollar that many other creditors received.