This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, October 19th, 2018.

I'm Caleb Brown. The class action lawsuit is typically a tool for many aggrieved

parties to take on one big entity.

So what if that entity is a government?

Maurice Thompson of the 1851 Center in Ohio sat down with me at the State Policy Network annual meeting to make a

libertarian case for class action lawsuits.

When we think about class action lawsuits, the first thing that pops into my head

is Walmart or people who are feel like they're owed wages. Typically, at least in my mind, I associate them with large groups of workers going up against a corporate entity and saying

we want more or we want this thing justified or not sometimes quite often they probably are

justified but you you make a sometimes quite often they probably are justified.

But you make a case for that libertarians should

be thinking more seriously about class action lawsuits

to achieve ends that individuals might not be able to.

Absolutely. The Libertarian case for class action lawsuits against government is in fact overwhelming. The class action device is relatively

modern invention. It exists in almost no other country besides the United States. And it's only been around for about 50 years

but the response amongst business people and conservatives in particular when they

hear the words class action is so reflexively negative and in some circumstances perhaps

rightly so because these devices are only used by the political left, but in fact a class of taxpayers or people

forced to pay a particular fine or fee are all subject to the same kind of seizure are a perfect

class of individuals to get certified by a court for a class action and to get their money back. We got into this issue from a

Libertarian or right-of-center perspective back in 2014 we won a decision at the Ohio Supreme Court holding that this property

tax that was imposed on this village without a vote was unconstitutional because no

...