All 20 of these lawsuits are real. That's the thing about class action litigation — you can't make this stuff up, mostly because the truth is already stranger than anything you'd invent.
The Subway footlong case is a personal favorite. A teenager in Australia posted a photo of a footlong sub next to a tape measure showing 11 inches. It went viral. A class action followed. The settlement was initially approved, then thrown out on appeal because the court found customers hadn't actually been harmed — the sandwiches weighed the same regardless of length. A multi-million dollar settlement, gone, because of bread physics.
The Red Bull case is equally instructive. Red Bull settled a $13 million suit over claims that its marketing — "Red Bull gives you wings" — implied performance benefits the drink didn't actually deliver. The settlement gave class members a choice between $10 cash or $15 in Red Bull products. Thousands of people chose the products. The system, working as intended.
What these cases have in common
Most of the lawsuits in this quiz share a pattern: a company makes a claim (explicitly or implicitly), a consumer relies on that claim, the claim turns out to be at least arguably false, and a lawyer files a class action. The cases that settle aren't necessarily the ones where the company was clearly wrong — they're the ones where litigation costs made settlement rational.
That's why you see settlements from companies that maintain they did nothing wrong. "No admission of wrongdoing" covers a lot of ground when the alternative is years of expensive discovery.
If any of these lawsuits made you wonder whether you might be part of a class — you might be. Check what's currently open on eosguide.