A class action lawsuits starts out just like any other lawsuit would. It generally involves a company that has in some way violated the right or well being or someone. When it begins to emerge that there are many people who fall into this same category of victim, the attorneys who are handling the case can request class action status from the court.
Basically, there are civil laws in effect which are intended to protect people in various ways such as improperly testing drugs, or not trusting them enough, failure to disclose known defects or problems with a product and other things of that nature. Asbestos would be a good example when it became known that it could cause cancer and was still being used or not otherwise removed through an abatement program. We can also then cite Toyota, who was subjected to Congressional hearings in 2010 and it came to light that at some point in the process, people knew there was a problem yet they never stopped production in order to fix it.
Cases like these result in the deaths of people, and so the companies should be held accountable for their actions, and thats why the courts will typical grant class action status in such cases. Civil lawsuits, including those that are granted class action status are different from a criminal proceeding. In a criminal proceeding we look to determine whether a person committed a crime whereas the class action lawsuit determines whether a company is liable for harm or injury that happened to the people.
A civil lawsuit is typically heard by a jury who will listen to the evidence and make a determination accordingly. They will usually set the financial liability of the company as part of the proceeding if the company is in fact found to be at fault. Additionally, if the jury finds that a company was grossly negligent in the events that led up to the reason for filing the court case to begin with, they may also award punitive damages in addition to the amount requested by the plaintiff in the lawsuit.
When a lawsuit becomes class action, the attorneys for the plaintiff will generally be given access to all company customer/client records for a time period specified by the court, and they will send out notifications by mail. However, this is not always the case, so we see on the television a number of different commercials from various law offices advertising these class action lawsuits.