For those people who have developed or suffered serious injury after taking Crestor, a cholesterol-lowering drug, a class action lawsuit may be a more effective legal option rather than an individual lawsuit against the drug maker (and other parties). Crestor is manufactured by the company AstraZeneca and approved for use by the FDA in 2003.

Suffered harm from Cestor? You may have a lawsuit. Click here, for a top rated law firm to evaluate your legal rights.

Crestor class action lawsuits will band together groups of individuals with comparable claims into one large single lawsuit. In other words, rather than starting a separate lawsuit, a class action permits all claims of those injured from taking the drug to be heard collectively in a single trial. Members of a class are given a chance to opt out of the suit; if the suit makes good, the judgment entered or settlement reached is distributed among the individuals who joined the lawsuit

For those who want to take legal action, is it worth it to file as a member of a class? It depends; there are pluses and minuses to a Crestor class action lawsuit. Since a single claim will be filed on behalf of a larger class of Crestor users, it makes some sense to pursue where claimants have only a few dollars at stake, not enough to justify the high costs of litigating an individual lawsuit. By pooling claims of those similarly situated, you, collectively, will have more clout in terms of sheer numbers against a larger, more powerful corporation, increasing the livelihood of recovery and its size. Class actions are also a way to cut court expense, by avoiding clogging the courts with the separate claims of people who have been harmed in the same way by the same product; it also avoids the necessity of repeating the same witnesses and reconstructing the same exhibits, from trial to trial.

The major downside to a Crestor class action lawsuit is the odds of receiving more in a class action than in a separately filed claim are lower. Any settlement received in a class action is split between the members who joined. With most class actions, a member is not free to pursue his or her own claim separately or sue for a different remedy. Another negative to a class action suit is that you lose the freedom of running your own individual trial. In an individual action, the court and the parties focus on your distinctive claim; your individual case will not linger. Your own attorney will work on your precise situation and deal with you as an individual which separates you from the pack of class action attorneys serving hundreds or thousands of people who you may never have seen or dealt with. Moreover, because of the directed, personalized attention, the attorney can resolve the issues about the injury and get the process completed quicker. In a class action, class members may be forced to wait longer for a decision.

For more information on individual lawsuits, see the sections on Filing a Lawsuit and How to Select a Lawyer.

Suffered harm from Cestor? You may have a lawsuit. Click here, for a top rated law firm to evaluate your legal rights.