Looking at Amazon's filings, the argument they made is the following:

>Given the unprecedented size of the proposed class consisting of 288 million members, the individualized issues on which their claims depend, and the overwhelming evidence that the challenged conduct resulted in lower prices in Amazon’s store, Plaintiffs have not—and cannot demonstrate that a class action would be manageable.

The "individualized issues" references arguments presented earlier in the filing. They also cite prior cases where class lawsuits have been denied certification because the class was too big to be manageable. You might disagree with Amazon's lawyers here, but it's unfair to characterize it as "we've wronged too many people to be held accountable". It's an "wild" argument because it's a strawman.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.29...

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Zigurd a minute ago | parent | next [-]

To say it's "unfair" is a non sequitur. Other classes may have been denied certification because they are large. But being "unmanageable" is both vague and in no way equivalent to being unfair, as you put it. Computers are fast and capacious. You can manage a few hundred million things on your phone.

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solardev a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don't see the difference between what the lawyers are saying and the parent's summary of it.

> we've wronged too many people to be held accountable

Sounds like exactly what it is... it's too big of a class to be managed, and therefore should not be?

In fact, the very next line is the judge saying:

> Chun found there was no evidence at this stage that the size of the class was overbroad. Other federal courts had certified class actions with millions or hundreds of millions of class members, the judge said.

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mikeryan 20 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I mean there are technical legal issues in the size of a class. For example, any member of a class can object to any settlement agreement or any multiple groups of class members can object to a settlement making managing approval difficult.

The flip side to Amazons argument though is that if the judge decided the class was too big they could break into multiple classes and Amazon would end up defending themselves on multiple fronts. Usually companies facing these things want to roll it all into a single class for that reason alone.

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gruez a day ago | parent | prev [-]

>Sounds like exactly what it is... it's too big of a class to be managed, and therefore should not be?

You missed the other 2 of the 3 parts of that argument.

>In fact, the very next line is the judge saying:

I'm not saying they're objectively right, just that there's more to the argument than "we've wronged too many people to be held accountable".

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solardev a day ago | parent [-]

So it's not really a strawman at all, and it was in fact one of their main arguments. They just also made other arguments on top of that...

Seems to me the parent was totally justified in calling it a wild argument.

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gruez a day ago | parent [-]

>and it was in fact one of their main arguments

It really wasn't. If you look at the table of contents, the part about was the class being too big was:

1. in one of the two top level arguments (II)

2. of (II), it was one of 6 sub-arguments (F)

3. of (F), the actual argument is "Plaintiffs Have Not Satisfied Rule 23(b)(3)’s Superiority Requirement.", of which the class was too big was one of three factors. For reference the other two are "the individualized issues on which their claims depend, and the overwhelming evidence that the challenged conduct resulted in lower prices in Amazon’s store"

>Seems to me the parent was totally justified in calling it a wild argument.

It really isn't. The specific legal standard is that if the total time to adjudicate all the class members is large, then class certification should be denied. This seems reasonable to me, at least in isolation. What's the point of a legal case that takes so long to resolve that by the time it's finished, everyone involved would be dead? Again, you might not agree with Amazon's argument that it's too complex to be resolved, and it's fine to deride them for thinking that the case is too complex for the court system to handle, but they're simply not making the claim that they should be let off the hook on the basis of 300 million plaintiffs alone.

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solardev a day ago | parent [-]

Sorry, I don't agree that any of that fundamentally changes the wild argument that "we've wronged too many people to be held accountable!".

But, hey, I'm just a rando on the internet. Feel free to disregard this comment.

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gruez a day ago | parent [-]

For one, they can still be held to account through individual lawsuits. Also at least part of the reason behind class action lawsuits is to streamline the lawsuit process. If a lawsuit ends up taking 100 years because that's long it takes to adjudicate each class member (which was the case in a prior unrelated lawsuit), then arguably a class action lawsuit is a poor fit. As the saying goes, justice delayed is justice denied. If you're allergic to nuance and want to round these considerations off to "you can't be held to account if you wronged too many people", then go for it, I can't stop you.

	▲	fn-mote 18 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I'm allergic to the idea that these "individualized issues" cannot be resolved by some well-written queries on the sales database. Of course it is in Amazon's best interest that the court not think like a programmer.
	▲	FireBeyond 17 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> For one, they can still be held to account through individual lawsuits. No-one's suing Amazon for this on an individual basis. And nor is any lawyer taking this case for a few bucks (literally). That doesn't mean there has been a wrong. That's part of the purpose of a class action. > If a lawsuit ends up taking 100 years because that's long it takes to adjudicate each class member (which was the case in a prior unrelated lawsuit) Citation?

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kevin_thibedeau 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> overwhelming evidence that the challenged conduct resulted in lower prices in Amazon’s store

Shkreli made back all the money from his clients that he misappropriated (by gambling with Retrophin shares). He still went to jail for fraud.

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nickff 20 hours ago | parent [-]

That was a criminal charge, not a class-action, and very different rules apply. Shkreli also committed one set of frauds against one company which affected many people; Amazon engaged in separate anti-competitive acts against many different companies which affected nearly the whole country.

	▲	justinclift 20 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> which affected nearly the whole country. And people outside the US as well, though those would likely have to be separate legal matters.

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Frieren 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> They also cite prior cases where class lawsuits have been denied certification because the class was too big to be manageable.

Evil corp got away with it once. All evil corps should be able to do the same is not a sane argument.

But it is an argument to add regulations and make large corporations accountable as soon as possible. So, make them pay for their past damage and force them to have better practices from now on.

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MangoToupe a day ago | parent | prev [-]

> resulted in lower prices in Amazon’s store

lower than what?

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adrr 21 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Or increased prices outside of Amazon. If you sold a shirt from your own website with 10% in selling costs and also sold on FBA where Amazon takes ~30%, do you lower prices on Amazon to match the price on your site(not allowed) or do raise prices on your own store? Factor in your gross margins that you're trying to hit.

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gruez a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Read the rest of the document from amazon, linked in my post.

	▲	MangoToupe 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Surely you're joking. What? Why can't you just quote the relevant context?