The Law: The Masses Cannot Sue

Seven years ago, Morton Eisen, a New York City wholesale shoe salesman, became convinced that his stockbroker had charged excessive fees. All other buyers and sellers of odd lots of stock (fewer than 100 shares), Eisen figured, were discriminated against in the same manner. He brought a class action on behalf of all who had paid the inflated fees—a total that has now reached 6,000,000 people—and he won a signal victory. Smaller class actions had long been common, but in Eisen's case a U.S. court of appeals held for the first time that federal rules governing such suits should not...