Open Class Action Lawsuits: How to File and What to Expect

Open class action lawsuits are cases where a settlement has been reached (or is close to it) and eligible people can file a claim to collect money, usually by a stated deadline. Dozens are active at any given time, and in mid-2026 the list ranges from a $2.5 billion Amazon Prime refund program down to small consumer settlements paying $25 to $50. If you fit the class definition and submit the claim form before the cutoff, you get paid; miss the deadline and the money goes to other claimants, a charity, or occasionally back to the defendant.

Settlements Open for Claims Right Now

The biggest active settlement is the Amazon Prime FTC case. The Federal Trade Commission alleged Amazon used deceptive enrollment and made Prime hard to cancel. Amazon neither admitted nor denied the allegations and agreed to pay $1.5 billion in customer refunds plus a $1 billion civil penalty. Customers who signed up through what the FTC called “challenged enrollment flows” between June 23, 2019, and June 23, 2025, may receive up to $51. Most refunds are automatic, but anyone who used Prime benefits between three and ten times in a 12-month period has to file a claim using a Claim ID and PIN that Amazon sent by email or mail. The deadline is July 27, 2026.¹

Other settlements accepting claims:

Comcast Xfinity data breach, $117.5 million. Customers whose data was exposed in the October 2023 incident can claim up to $10,000 for documented out-of-pocket losses or take a fixed cash payment. Deadline September 14, 2026.²
Tyson and Cargill beef price-fixing, $87.5 million. Fresh or frozen beef bought from grocery stores between August 2014 and December 2019 in 28 eligible states. Pro-rated payout, deadline June 30, 2026.³⁴
Google Assistant privacy, $68 million. U.S. users of Nest, Home, or Pixel devices that recorded audio from accidental activations between May 2016 and March 2026. Deadline August 27, 2026.⁵
Tinder age discrimination, $60.5 million. California residents over 29 (after March 2, 2015) or over 28 (after March 2, 2016) who bought Tinder Plus or Tinder Gold. No claim form, but class members should select a payment method by August 18, 2026.⁶⁷
Hyundai and Kia airbag defect, $62.1 million. Owners or lessees of qualifying vehicles as of April 14, 2025 can claim reimbursement for airbag control unit expenses. Deadline March 29, 2027.⁸
Lakeview Loan Servicing breach, $26 million. Up to $5,000 for documented losses from the October 2021 breach. Deadline June 22, 2026.⁹
Grubhub driver misclassification, $24.75 million. Minimum $25 payment. Deadline June 18, 2026.⁹
Ashley, Nectar, DreamCloud, and Siena fiberglass mattresses, $9 million. Vouchers for replacement products for buyers between October 2017 and June 2024. Deadline July 17, 2026.⁵
Sprouts Farmers Market receipt printing, $5 million. Customers whose receipts showed more than the last five digits of a card number between August 2020 and October 2022. Estimated $67.50 to $405 per person, deadline August 5, 2026.⁵

This list changes constantly. New settlements get approved every month, and older ones close as their deadlines pass, so checking an aggregator before you count on any one case is worth the five minutes.

How to Find Cases That Apply to You

Three free sites track open settlements and let you search by status or deadline. Top Class Actions has covered settlements since 2008. ClassAction.org runs a searchable database and sends a free weekly email with new claim deadlines.¹⁰¹¹ Consumer Action, a nonprofit, maintains a database at consumer-action.org that sorts by “open to claims,” “pending,” and “closed,” with a calendar of upcoming deadlines.¹²

If a settlement notice reaches you by email or postal mail, verify it before clicking anything. Search the case name, find the official settlement website, and cross-reference the case number on your notice against the one on the verified site. Legitimate settlements never ask you to pay an administrative fee or hand over your full Social Security number.¹⁰

How to File a Claim

Most class actions are opt-out. If you meet the class definition, you’re automatically included; you don’t sign up, hire a lawyer, attend hearings, or pay anything.¹³ A smaller number of cases, especially wage-and-hour disputes, are opt-in and require you to affirmatively elect to participate using the instructions in the class notice.

Being in the class doesn’t mean money shows up on its own. Once a settlement is approved, eligible members usually have to submit a claim form by the deadline. Forms are typically available on the official settlement website or by mail. Some settlements require documentation like receipts or proof of purchase; others accept a sworn statement. Providing documentation usually bumps you into a higher payout tier.¹³

Claims are handled by a settlement administrator, a neutral third-party company approved by the court. Firms like Epiq and JND Legal Administration send notices, review claim forms, and mail checks. If you have a question about your claim, the administrator is who to call. Their contact information appears on the official settlement website and in the class notice. News sites that report on settlements can’t look up individual claims.¹⁴¹⁵

What You Can Expect to Get Paid

There’s no standard payout. Individual amounts depend on the size of the fund, how many people file, how much comes off the top for attorney fees and administration, and whether the settlement separates documented losses from tier payouts. Consumer cases commonly pay $10 to $50 per person; cases involving medical harm, wage theft, or large-scale fraud can pay hundreds or thousands.⁵

The range is wide. The Volkswagen emissions settlement paid $5,100 to $10,000 per eligible vehicle owner. The Apple Siri data settlement paid less than a dollar per claimant. The Facebook biometric privacy settlement averaged about $397. In the current Comcast Xfinity breach case, documented losses can draw up to $10,000, while a class member without documentation would get around $50.⁵²

Attorney fees come out of the fund before class members are paid. Courts typically approve fees averaging 23 to 27 percent of the gross recovery, with the percentage usually dropping in very large settlements.¹⁶ Class members pay nothing out of pocket to participate.

Payment is slow. After the claims deadline, the administrator verifies submissions, the court holds a final approval hearing, and any appeals have to be resolved. From final approval to a check in your hand, expect six months to a year or more.⁵

Opting Out and Objecting

If you want to preserve the right to sue the defendant on your own, you have to opt out. That means sending a written exclusion request to the court by the deadline in the settlement notice, with your name, contact information, a statement that you want to be excluded, the case name, and the case number. Certified mail with a return receipt is sensible. Miss the deadline and you’re automatically bound by whatever the court decides, which forecloses an individual lawsuit on the same claims.¹⁷

Objecting is different. If you think a settlement is unfair but still want your share, you can file a written objection with the court. You stay in the class and stay eligible for compensation. An objection asks the court to reject the deal; it can’t ask for specific changes. You don’t need a lawyer, and you aren’t required to appear, though you can speak at the final approval hearing.¹⁷

In some class actions, particularly those certified under Rule 23(b)(1) or (b)(2) for injunctive or declaratory relief, the class is mandatory and there’s no right to opt out.¹⁸

Why So Few Eligible People Actually File

Even when settlement funds run into the billions, the share of eligible people who file a claim is startlingly low. A Federal Trade Commission study of 149 consumer class action settlements found a median claims rate of 9 percent. When notice came only by email, the rate dropped to about 3 percent.¹⁹

A lot of people mistake real notices for junk or phishing. In the FTC study, less than half of recipients who got an email notice understood it was about a refund. Plain-English wording (“cash” or “money” instead of legal jargon) and including the claim form with the notice roughly doubled response rates. About 79 percent of consumer settlements require an affirmative claim, which filters out anyone who doesn’t understand what to do or decides the payout isn’t worth it.¹⁹

Unclaimed money doesn’t disappear. Depending on the settlement agreement and the court’s discretion, leftover funds can be redistributed pro-rata to claimants who did file, donated to a related nonprofit under the doctrine known as cy pres, or in some cases returned to the defendant.²⁰ The practical point for you: if you qualify, filing takes a few minutes and the money is already set aside.

How a Class Action Works

A class action is a single lawsuit brought by one or more plaintiffs on behalf of a larger group with similar claims. Instead of thousands of separate suits, the court resolves one case for the whole class. That structure is what makes it possible to pursue claims too small to litigate individually.²¹

Under Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a court has to certify a case as a class action before it can proceed. Certification requires four conditions: the class is large enough that individual joinder is impractical (numerosity), members share common legal questions (commonality), the lead plaintiff’s claims are typical of the class (typicality), and the representatives and their lawyers can fairly protect everyone’s interests (adequacy). For damages classes, the court also requires that common questions predominate and that a class action is superior to other ways of handling the dispute.¹⁸ If certification is denied, each plaintiff has to sue separately, which usually ends consumer claims where damages are a few dollars.¹³

Class Actions vs. Multi-District Litigation

Some of the biggest active cases, like the insulin pricing and generic drug price-fixing disputes, are structured as multi-district litigation rather than class actions. An MDL consolidates separately filed lawsuits from around the country before one federal judge for pretrial proceedings. Each plaintiff keeps their own attorney, and if the cases don’t settle they return to their original courts for individual trials. A class action is one lawsuit where one judgment or settlement binds the whole class. MDLs are governed by 28 U.S.C. § 1407 and are common in pharmaceutical, medical device, and environmental cases where individual circumstances vary too much for a single class action to work.²²

How Long These Cases Take

Class actions are slow. Most take two to five years from filing to resolution; complex antitrust or fraud cases can run a decade. Investigation and filing alone can take a year, class certification another six months to two years, and discovery one to three years on top of that. If the case settles, the court has to hold a fairness hearing and give notice to the class before granting final approval, which adds months. After final approval, the administrator verifies claims and distributes payments, typically six months to a year.⁵ Appeals can add one to three years. Most class actions settle before trial; when a case does go to trial, it can take weeks to months and may be decided by a judge or a jury.²³

1
CBS News. Amazon Prime Refund FTC Settlement How to File Claim
2
Comcast Breach Settlement. Hasson v. Comcast Cable Communications, LLC
3
ClassAction.org. $87.5M Beef Settlement Ends Antitrust Litigation Over Alleged Price-Fixing by Cargill, Tyson
4
Capital Press. Judge Approves $87.5 Million Beef Antitrust Settlement
5
USA Today. Open Settlement Claims 2026
6
New York Post. Tinder to Pay $60.5M Settlement in California in Age Discrimination Suit
7
ClassAction.org. Candelore v. Tinder, Inc. Settlement Notice
8
Consumer Action. Class Action Database – Open to Claims
9
Top Class Actions. 10 Class Action Settlements You Can Claim in June 2026
10
AARP. Class Action Settlement Notice
11
ClassAction.org. ClassAction.org
12
Consumer Action. Class Action Database
13
ClassAction.org. How to Join a Class Action Lawsuit
14
ClassAction.org. We Don’t Run Class Action Settlements – Here’s Who Does
15
Top Class Actions. Settlement Administrator
16
U.S. Courts. Theodore Eisenberg, Geoffrey Miller – Attorneys’ Fees in Class Actions
17
ClassAction.org. Class Action FAQs – How to Object to a Class Action Settlement
18
Cornell Law Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 23
19
Federal Trade Commission. Consumers and Class Actions – A Retrospective and Analysis of Settlement Campaigns
20
Duke Judicature. Cy Pres in Class Action Settlements
21
University of Washington School of Law. Class Action Lawsuits
22
National Agricultural Law Center. Procedures – Class Actions and Multi-District Litigations
23
LawInfo. The Phases of a Class Action Lawsuit