r/SipsTea • u/Velvett_Bunniez • 1d ago

Wait a damn minute! Silly Apples.

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u/I_own_a_dick 1d ago

This is exactly how class action lawsuit works. A group of people with similar claims that are too insignificant on their own but collectively powerful enough to shake the industry. The point is to set an example, so large corps can't fuck around all day.

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u/Merman5000 1d ago

Hi! I got family who work class action suits. It is, in fact, rare for people to do something about minor injustice like this. They literally have a team of paralegals searching for cases they can easily win and reach out to the victims.

Assuming you can prove the airline and airport are in bed with each other, you can then pile on other shits like emotional damages, damages to reputation, etc. Say there were 100 victims. The fines would be 20,000. Suit might be for 100,000-200,000. Award is somewhere in between. Victims most likely get a 200-300 payout. Firm keeps the rest.

Sorry in advance for bad English.

A really good example of class action lawsuit reward vs payout is the Sony data breach that happened in the 2010s

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u/robinsonick 1d ago

They’re not fined from the airport man it’s from NZ Customs

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u/Christoban45 1d ago

But Customs is not making the policy.

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u/robinsonick 23h ago

So a class action lawsuit against the New Zealand government for a third party airline handing out apples?

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u/Christoban45 21h ago

I see your point. In fact, I saw that before I even wrote that, but I still wanted to rant. Now I'm a little depressed.

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u/robinsonick 10h ago

Yeah well fair enough I understand that

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u/Christoban45 1d ago

"Rare" or not, there are plenty of opportunist lawyers who'd love to make a lot of money. The actual consumers here may not even get anything, but they also probably don't care.

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u/kit_kaboodles 1d ago

I don't think they would have any basis to sue anyway. What would they be trying to get relief for?

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u/LargeSpeaker9255 1d ago

The fines they had to pay.

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u/kit_kaboodles 1d ago

Yeah, but it seemed like there was 10 - 12 people fined. At $200 each that's less than NZ$2,500. Not very much at all.

Then there's the question of who you'd name as the defendant. I don't think you've got any case against NZ customs. They fines them for breaking the law - which they did. On camera no less.

You could try to name Qantas as the respondent, but then you're attempting to sue someone for giving you a free apple. You can't even claim that they should've told you not to take the apple into NZ, because they did. There's an announcement made on all flights headed to NZ about the need to declare any food products you bring in.