What makes a lawsuit a class action law suit?

[darvell]

A class action lawsuit is a lawsuit involving numerous plaintiffs suing one defendant (or several defendants) who acted negligently. In most mass tort cases, the various individual plaintiffs must be suing based on harms cased by a single common product.

[toryn34]

when i covers more than one person .. such as smokers users of drugs that have widespread ill effects etc

[raleah]

in a class action law suit, there are a large number of people with similar claims but the amount of each person's loss is usually small. a judge must approve certification of the class, which means the circumstances of each person's case must be similar. lawyers make a lot of money from these cases.