Commonality

Questions that can be answered the same way for everyone.

Commonality requires questions of law or fact common to the class. If resolving each person’s claim would require its own mini-trial, the case is not suited to class treatment.

A practice applied uniformly by a system - a checkout flow, a billing rule, a script - tends to produce strong commonality.

Related terms

• Class action - One lawsuit brought on behalf of everyone harmed the same way.
• Class representative - The named person who stands in for the whole class.
• Class certification - The court ruling that lets one case speak for everyone.
• Arbitration clause - Contract language sending disputes to a private forum instead of court.
• Class-action waiver - A term saying you may only bring a claim for yourself, never as a group.
• Unconscionability - A contract term so one-sided a court refuses to enforce it.
• Contract of adhesion - A take-it-or-leave-it contract with no room to negotiate.
• Assent - Whether you actually agreed, and how the company proved it.