Consumers and 

Class Actions:

A Retrospective and Analysis of 

Settlement Campaigns

AN FTC STAFF REPORT 

Federal Trade Commission 

September 2019
Table of Contents

Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................ 1

Administrator Study .................................................................................................................... 1

Notice Study................................................................................................................................ 2

Limitations .................................................................................................................................. 2

Chapter 1: Background ............................................................................................................... 4

1.1 FTC’s Class Action Fairness Project ............................................................................... 4

1.2 FTC Consumer Studies and Data Analysis ...................................................................... 4

1.3 The Class Action Process ................................................................................................. 5

1.4 The FTC’s Redress Program ............................................................................................ 7

1.5 The FTC and Past Consumer Studies on Disclosures ...................................................... 8

1.6 Related Research on Class Action Claims and Compensation ........................................ 9

Chapter 2: Administrator Study ................................................................................................... 11

2.1 Summary of Results ............................................................................................................ 11

2.2 Data Collection ................................................................................................................... 12

2.3 Description of Outcome Measures...................................................................................... 13

2.4 Limitations .......................................................................................................................... 16

2.5 Analysis............................................................................................................................... 17

Case Composition ................................................................................................................. 17

General Summary Statistics .................................................................................................. 20

Method of Notice .................................................................................................................. 23

Claim Form Inclusion and Visibility .................................................................................... 27

Success of Delivery............................................................................................................... 29

Opening Rates ....................................................................................................................... 30

Amount of Median Redress .................................................................................................. 31

2.6 Incidence of Notice and Claim Form Characteristics ......................................................... 33

Notice Characteristics ........................................................................................................... 33

Claim Form Characteristics .................................................................................................. 38

2.7 Regression Analysis ............................................................................................................ 40

Notice Characteristics ........................................................................................................... 42
Claim Form Characteristics .................................................................................................. 44

Chapter 3: Notice Study ............................................................................................................... 45

3.1 Summary ............................................................................................................................. 45

Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 45

Limitations ............................................................................................................................ 46

Conclusions ........................................................................................................................... 46

3.2 Study Methodology ............................................................................................................. 47

Overview ............................................................................................................................... 47

Sampling Frame .................................................................................................................... 47

3.3 Study Design ....................................................................................................................... 48

Conceptual Framework ......................................................................................................... 49

Part I: Inbox .......................................................................................................................... 49

Part II: Email Body ............................................................................................................... 50

3.5 Results ................................................................................................................................. 52

Part I: Inbox Results.............................................................................................................. 52

Questions Posed to Respondents ................................................................................ 52

Impact of Sender Information on Opening and Comprehension Rates ...................... 53

Impact of Refund Amount in Subject Line on Opening and Comprehension Rates .. 56

Impact of Subject Line on Opening and Comprehension Rates ................................. 59

Sender- Subject Line ................................................................................................... 62

Analysis of Open-Ended Responses, Inbox Results ................................................... 64

Part II: Email Body Results .................................................................................................. 69

Questions Posed to Respondents ................................................................................ 69

Impact of Court Seal ................................................................................................... 71

Impact of Email Format .............................................................................................. 73

Court Seal – Email Format ......................................................................................... 75

Analysis of Open-Ended Responses, Email Body Results ......................................... 77

Discussion ............................................................................................................................. 78

Appendix A: FTC 6(b) Order ..................................................................................................... A-1

Appendix B: Additional Tables- Administrator Study ............................................................... B-1

Appendix C: Notice Characteristic Coding Methodology- Administrator Study ....................... C-1
Appendix D: Questionnaire- Notice Study ................................................................................. D-1

Appendix E: Example Screenshots of Part I Stimuli- Notice Study ............................................ E-1

Appendix F: Example Screenshots of Part II Stimuli-Notice Study............................................ F-1

Appendix G: Additional Tables-Notice Study ............................................................................ G-1
1 

Executive Summary

 As part of its consumer protection mission, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) has 

examined issues related to the effectiveness of class action settlements for more than a decade. 

To further the FTC’s understanding of these issues and develop information to help improve 

settlement outcomes for consumers, the FTC staff conducted two studies. First, pursuant to 

Section 6(b) of the FTC Act,1

 we obtained a sample of 149 consumer class action cases from 

large class action administrators (the “Administrator Study”). Based on the data collected, we 

analyzed several characteristics of these settlements, such as notice methods and redress (i.e., 

compensation) amounts available, and how these characteristics relate to outcomes, including 

claim filing and check cashing rates. Second, we fielded an Internet-based consumer research 

study (the “Notice Study”) to explore consumer perceptions of emailed class action notices, 

including whether consumers understand the options provided in such notices. In this 

preliminary report, we present the results of these studies. The FTC seeks comments on these 

results and their implications for improving the class action process. 

 

Administrator Study			

 The results of the Administrator Study revealed several notable facets of claims rates, 

notice types, check cashing rates, and redress amounts. First, the overall claims rate of the cases 

in the sample was less than 10% and varied depending on whether class members received notice 

by packets, postcards, or email.2 Second, we did not find different claims rates when publication 

notices were used as a supplement to direct notices. Third, we did not find that changes in 

median compensation were related to claims rates, but the study did show that check cashing 

rates were higher as median compensation increased. Finally, in a supplementary examination of 

qualitative notice and claim form characteristics, we found that the claims rate was higher in 

cases where the notices used visually prominent, “plain English” language to describe payment 

 

1 15 U.S.C § 46(b). 

2 We define “notice packet” as any non-postcard mailed notice, typically consisting of a detailed notice with a 

claims form. The claims rate for each case was calculated by dividing the number of claims filed by the number of 

notice recipients. The check cashing rate for each case was calculated by dividing the number of checks cashed by 

the number of checks mailed to class members. The relationships, or lack thereof, noted here are based on statistical 

significance testing at the 95 percent confidence level. See Chapter 2 for further details. 
2 

availability.3 However, we did not find other notice and claim form characteristics, such as form 

length and documentation requirements, to be related to the claims rate in our sample. 

Notice Study

The Notice Study sought to evaluate whether certain email characteristics – such as the 

sender’s address, phrasing of the subject line, availability of payment amount in the subject line, 

email body format, and the presence or absence of a court seal – influenced respondents’ 

comprehension, understanding, impressions, and likelihood of opening the email. The results 

indicate that certain widely used characteristics of emailed class action notices perform better 

than alternatives on some – but not all – dimensions. For example, including the name of, or a 

reference to, the class action in the subject line increased respondent comprehension of the 

purpose of the email but resulted in fewer respondents stating that they would open the email 

relative to emails with subject lines that did not include this information. Respondents had the 

highest stated opening rates for emails with subject lines that omitted any reference to a class 

action. In addition, omitting the amount of compensation from the subject line improved both 

comprehension and stated opening rates. Finally, using a long-format email with formal, legal 

writing improved the understanding of the nature of the email while a condensed form of the 

email improved the understanding of next steps. Respondents were also more suspicious of the 

condensed form email than the long form emails. Overall, less than half of respondents 

understood that the email pertains to a class action settlement or a refund rather than representing 

a promotional email, and less than half correctly understood the steps required to receive a 

refund.4 Significantly, several of these results suggest respondents may view class action 

settlement notices with skepticism – an area that would benefit from further study. 

Limitations

 Although the Administrator Study is the most comprehensive empirical study of 

consumer class action settlements to date, readers should consider several limitations when 

 

3

 For the limited purpose of coding the particular notices in the specific context of this study, we defined “plain 

English” descriptions of payment availability as those that were visually prominent, and used language that was 

likely to be understood by the typical consumer as signifying a payment, such as “payment,” “refund,” “money,” 

“cash,” “reimbursement,” “compensation,” or the amount or estimate of the payment listed with “$.” 

4

 Specifically, across all experimental conditions, 38.2% correctly understood the nature of the email when seeing it 

in an inbox, 49.3% correctly understood the nature of the email when viewing the actual email, and 40.5% correctly 

understood the next steps required to receive a refund. See Chapter 2 for the definition of the comprehension 

measures used to calculate these percentages and Appendix Tables G.2 through G.4 for 95% confidence intervals for 

these figures. 
3 

interpreting the results. First, the study examines relationships between notice characteristics 

and settlement outcomes but does not definitively show that one particular practice performs 

better than others. Second, class action settlements can take various and often complex forms, 

making it difficult to compare across settlements and to interpret outcome measures at facevalue. Moreover, while we include a broad set of consumer cases in the study, the analysis of 

this select sample of cases may not be projectable to the entire universe of consumer class 

actions. 

 In addition, the Notice Study, which used a voluntary internet panel to gather responses, 

is not a true probability sample. Therefore, absolute percentages from its findings should not be 

projected to the national population. Furthermore, the survey platform in the Notice Study did 

not fully replicate an authentic email experience for respondents and thus may have yielded 

responses that do not completely capture real-life consumer experiences with email. 

Nevertheless, both studies provide valuable insight into determinants of consumer class action 

settlement outcomes and provide a foundation for future research. 
4 

Chapter 1: Background

1.1 FTC’s Class Action Fairness Project

The Commission has followed developments in class action cases for more than a decade 

through its Class Action Fairness Project. In maintaining this program, the Commission strives 

to ensure that class action settlements in consumer protection and competition matters provide 

appropriate benefits to consumers. As a consumer protection agency, the FTC is concerned 

about class action settlements that do not adequately compensate injured consumers, either 

because the settlement provides inadequate redress, such as coupons of questionable or uncertain 

value, or because the process used in many settlements can create substantial barriers to 

consumer participation and thus may result in low returns and compensation. As part of this 

program, the FTC monitors class actions and files amicus briefs or intervenes in appropriate 

cases;5

 coordinates with state, federal, and private groups to advise them and to seek suggestions 

on matters that merit FTC attention; and monitors the progress of legislation and class action rule 

changes. 

1.2 FTC Consumer Studies and Data Analysis

As detailed in this report, the FTC has recently taken several measures to further the 

goals of the Class Action Project. First, the Commission obtained data about recent class action 

lawsuits from entities that routinely administer the settlements in these cases. Specifically, 

pursuant to section 6(b) of the FTC Act, the Commission issued orders to seven claims 

administrators, requiring them to provide information on procedures they use to notify class 

members about settlements and the response rates for various methods of notification. Second, 

the FTC staff fielded a randomized, controlled consumer research study to explore consumer 

perceptions of class action notices, including whether consumers understand the options 

 

5 See e.g., FTC’s Mem. of Law as Amicus Curiae, Nwabueze v. AT&T, Inc., 3:09-cv-1529 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 30, 

2013), https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/amicus_briefs/nwabueze-v.att-inc./ 

130830nwabuezeamicus.pdf; FTC’s Mem. of Law as Amicus Curiae, White v. EDebitPay, LLC, 2:11-cv-06738 

(C.D. Cal. Aug. 9, 2013), https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/amicus_briefs/anita-white -etal.v.edebitpay-l.l.c.et-al.no.211-cv-06738-cbm-ffm-c.d.cal-august-9-2013/130809edebitpayamicusbrief.pdf; Mot. of 

FTC for Leave to File Brief as Amicus Curiae, Moore v. Verizon Commc’ns, Inc., 4:09-cv-08123 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 

17, 2012), https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/ documents/amicus_briefs/moore-v.verizon- communicationsinc./120817mooreverizonamicusbrief.pdf. 
5 

provided in such notices and the implications of such options. During the process, the 

Commission sought comment on the studies in several Federal Register Notices.6 

1.3 The Class Action Process

For decades, class action lawsuits have provided consumers a means to obtain redress in 

cases where individual suits would be inefficient or impractical. Class action cases address a 

variety of issues including consumer products, securities, employment, and environmental 

harms. Typical consumer-related class actions are governed by Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of 

Civil Procedure. Under this Rule, after a complaint is filed, the court must weigh whether a class 

action is appropriate given the case’s circumstances.7

 If it deems a class action appropriate under 

Rule 23, the court then certifies the class. In doing so, it must define the class itself, the class 

claims, issues, and defenses. The court also must appoint class counsel. 

After certifying the class, the court must address the issue of notice to the class. Rule 23 

contains provisions for notice prior to resolution of the underlying claims as well as notice to 

class members following a settlement.8 Since most cases settle well before trial and even prior to 

certification, notice typically serves to alert consumers of both the proposed class action 

certification and the settlement.9 Our research efforts focused on these typical, combined class 

certification/settlement notices. 

The adequacy of notice determines, in large part, the number of consumers alerted and 

ultimately redressed for the unlawful practices. Under Rule 23(c)(2), the court must direct the 

“best notice practicable under the circumstances, including individual notice to all members who 

 

6 See 80 Fed. Reg. 25676 (May 5, 2015); 80 Fed. Reg. 25677 (May 5, 2015); and 82 Fed. Reg. 32816 (July 18, 

2017). 

7

 Any class action lawsuit must satisfy the following four prerequisites: numerosity (i.e., the class must be large 

enough to render joinder impracticable), commonality (i.e., the class must share the question of law and fact), 

typicality (i.e., the representative parties’ claims must be typical of the class), and adequacy of representation (i.e., 

the representative parties will “fairly and adequately protect” the class’s interest). Once these conditions are met, 

the court must find, in cases involving money damages, that questions of law or fact common to class members 

“predominate over any questions affecting only individual members,” and that a class action is superior to other 

methods for “fairly and efficiently” addressing the controversy. 

8 See Rule 23(b) (general notice provisions) and Rule 23(e) (settlement-related provisions). 

9 See, The Problem of Settlement Class Actions, 82 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 951, 960-62 (2014). The Federal 

Judicial Center has developed guidance and examples for notices addressing class action certification and settlement 

simultaneously. See “Illustrative Forms of Class Action Notices,” Federal Judicial Center, 

https://www.fjc.gov/content/301253/illustrative-forms-class-action-notices-introduction. 
6 

can be identified through reasonable effort.” The notice must state the action’s nature; the 

certified class definition; the class claims, issues, or defenses; the option of representation, the 

right and process to request exclusion; and the action’s binding effect on participating class 

members. Finally, under Rule 23(e)(1), the court must direct “notice in a reasonable manner to 

all class members who would be bound by the proposal.” In approving notice in individual 

cases, the court has significant discretion in approving the form, content, and method of 

dissemination in the case. 

Although notifying and providing compensation to class members can pose substantial 

challenges in any class action lawsuit, cases involving consumer injury present particular 

complications. In some cases, the process can be fairly simple. The class may be well-defined 

and well-known, especially where the defendants have clear records with customer contact 

information and purchase details. In those instances, distribution of the award can be 

straightforward. Case administrators can simply send checks to the affected consumers. In most 

consumer class actions cases, however, resolution is much more complicated. Frequently,

defendants only have contact information for a small portion of affected consumers; or they may 

have no such information at all. In other instances, they have information for some consumers 

but no record of what those people purchased and thus no way to know the consumers’ injury. 

Where consumer identities are unknown or individual harm is uncertain, courts have generally 

approved a “claims-made” process in which the class certification/settlement notice requires 

consumers to complete and file a claim form to receive redress. Typically, class action 

administrators review submitted claim forms and any supporting documentation to verify that 

claimants meet the requirements for participation in the settlement. If a claim does not meet this 

definition—e.g., if it is incomplete or contains inconsistencies—the administrator may reject the 

claim or ask for additional information from the claimant. 

The details of the claims-made notice process depend on the conditions in individual 

cases. When consumer contact information exists, courts generally approve some form of direct 

notice to consumers. But where the addresses of class members are unknown, the settlements 

usually involve indirect “notice by publication” (i.e., in various media that are likely to be 

accessed by affected consumers). Some courts approve a hybrid approach, where a combination 

of direct and publication notice is employed. 

Consistent with Rule 23, notices in claims-made cases generally provide detailed 

information about the case, the settlement, the steps necessary to claim benefits, the right to opt 

out, and other specifics regarding the matter.10 Depending on the case, the notice itself can take 

 

10 Rule 23(c)(2)(B)(v) requires that the notice inform class members that that the court will exclude from the class 

any member who requests exclusion. By opting out, consumers retain the right to participate in a different lawsuit 

on the same issues. However, these consumers do not receive payment in the class action. 
7 

several forms, ranging from long, text-heavy documents to shorter, more abbreviated advisories. 

The notice can include, in addition to the standard background information and instructions, a 

claim form requiring the consumer to provide personal contact information (e.g., mailing 

address, email address, etc.) as well as information about his or her product purchases related to 

the case. 

In implementing Rule 23 in individual cases, courts have approved a variety of methods 

to reach consumers. The most traditional approach involves the dissemination of letters or 

postcards through conventional mail service. Where contact information for class members is 

unavailable, publication notices generally appear in magazines, newspapers, television, and 

radio. In recent years, courts have increasingly approved individual notice through email, given 

its low cost and efficiency; and they have also approved publication notices through banner and 

pop-up advertisements on websites.11 

1.4 The FTC’s Redress Program

Although the FTC does not participate directly in consumer class action cases, it has 

extensive experience in consumer redress through its day-to-day enforcement efforts. 

Specifically, the FTC works to return money to people who are harmed by illegal business 

practices. To do so, the FTC directs dozens of mailings resulting in millions of dollars in 

refunds.12

Once an FTC lawsuit is final, and the defendants have paid the money ordered by the 

court, the FTC develops a plan for returning that money to consumers. As in class action cases, 

FTC success depends principally on whether the agency has a reliable list of customers, 

including their contact information and the amount of money they spent. The FTC usually has 

this information, and it mails checks out to a list of known customers. A recent FTC staff report 

indicated that 67% of eligible recipients cash their checks.13 In some FTC cases, however, there 

is no list of known customers or there is insufficient contact information, and the agency must 

use a claims process to identify people who should receive a refund. In such cases, the people 

affected must apply for a refund. A claims process typically increases the administrative costs of 

 

11 For a discussion of various notice methods, see Aiken, Alexander, “Class Action Notice in the Digital Age,” 

University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Vol. 165, No. 967, 2017. 

12 See 2018 Annual Report on Refunds to Consumers (https://www.ftc.gov/reports/2018-annual-report-refundsconsumers). 

13 Id. 
8 

the refund program and decreases participation numbers. In implementing the claims process, 

the agency conducts a media campaign, using paid advertisements to inform people that refunds 

are available and to encourage them to visit the FTC website to apply. In other cases, the agency 

uses whatever minimal data is available, such as a consumer’s email address, to tell consumers 

about the refund process. In these cases, the FTC generally receives claims from 5% to 20% of 

potential claimants (and about 95% of people who file a claim cash their checks).14 If there is no 

customer list and a claims process is not feasible, the agency uses its Consumer Sentinel 

Database to find eligible recipients. 

1.5 The FTC and Past Consumer Studies on Disclosures

 The Notice Study tests the impact of various email characteristics—including the 

disclosure of the refund amount in the subject line and the display of a court seal within the 

email—on respondent comprehension. The design of this study draws upon the FTC’s 

experience in conducting consumer studies to test the effectiveness of disclosures. 

Disclosures are typically used to remedy imperfect information problems, or to help 

uninformed consumers make better-informed decisions. Several past FTC empirical studies have 

found that the effectiveness of disclosures is highly dependent on plain English phrasing and the 

clear presentation of information.15 For example, in a 2017 exploratory FTC study on consumer 

recognition of online advertising, we found that several modifications to advertising disclosures 

helped consumers identify which online content is promotional. For instance, text that is visually 

distinctive or disclosures that avoid technical jargon (e.g., “Paid Post” rather than “Brand 

Publishing”) appeared to improve respondents’ recognition of promotional online content.16 In 

another FTC study, Lacko and Pappalardo (2007), using a randomized, controlled research 

design, found that mortgage disclosures that used easy-to-understand language and highlighted 

key mortgage costs performed significantly better than the mandated disclosures that were in use 

 

14 In recent cases where there was a claims process, the average check cashing rate was 90%. 

15 For summaries of consumer studies conducted by the FTC, see Janis K. Pappalardo, Contributions by Federal 

Trade Commission Economists to Consumer Protection: Research, Policy, and Law Enforcement, Journal of Public 

Policy & Marketing, 33(2), (Fall 2014) and Lorrie Cranor, Putting Disclosures to the Test, Tech@FTC Blog Post, 

September 12, 2016, https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/techftc/2016/09/ftc-disclosure-evaluation-researcharchives. 

16 Blurred Lines: An Exploration of Consumers' Advertising Recognition in the Contexts of Search Engines and 

Native Advertising, Federal Trade Commission Staff Report (December 2017), 

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/reports/blurred-lines-exploration-consumers-advertising-recognitioncontexts-search-engines-native/p164504_ftc_staff_report_re_digital_advertising_and_appendices.pdf. 
9 

at the time.17 FTC staff also tested alternative approaches to displaying energy efficiency 

information on EnergyGuide labels—the yellow tag displayed on most appliances that contains 

information on the energy usage of the appliance—using a randomized, controlled design. That 

study found that consumers understand energy usage using operating costs better than they 

understand usage based on a technical, kilowatt hour metric.18 In addition, a 1998 FTC study by 

Murphy et al. on food health claims concluded, among other things, that advertising disclosures 

concerning high levels of risk-increasing nutrients were likely to be more effective if presented 

in plain English.19 

The Notice Study’s findings suggest that the most effective way to display information to 

consumers is likely to be context-specific. For example, in contrast to prior research 

documenting the superiority of plain English phrasing, the Notice Study found that, in the 

context of the class action settlement notice studied, a long-format email with formal, legal 

writing improved respondents’ understanding of the nature of the email (i.e., they were more 

likely to understand that the email pertained to a class action settlement or a refund, rather than 

representing a promotional email). At the same time, our study also found that an email using a 

bulleted list with easier-to-understand language improved respondents’ understanding of next 

steps required to receive settlement compensation. 

1.6 Related Research on Class Action Claims and Compensation

Several recent studies have addressed consumer outcomes in class action settlements. 

However, FTC staff has not identified any attempts to conduct an empirical analysis of consumer 

class actions at the scope and scale presented in this report.20

 

17 James M. Lacko and Janis K. Pappalardo, Improving Consumer Mortgage Disclosures: An Empirical Assessment 

of Current and Prototype Disclosure Forms, Federal Trade Commission Bureau of Economics Staff Report (2007), 

https://www.ftc.gov/reports/improving-consumer-mortgage-disclosures-empirical-assessment-current-prototypedisclosure.

18 For a discussion of this research, see Joseph Farrell, Janis K. Pappalardo, and Howard Shelanski, Economics at 

the FTC: Mergers, Dominant-Firm Conduct, and Consumer Behavior, Review of Industrial Organization, 37 (4), 

(2010). 

19 Dennis Murphy, Theodore H. Hoppock, and Michelle K. Rusk, A Generic Copy Test of Food Health Claims in 

Advertising, Federal Trade Commission Bureau of Economics Staff Report (1998), 

https://www.ftc.gov/reports/generic-copy-test-food-health-claims-advertising

20 While we focus on prior quantitative studies in this section, qualitative examinations of class actions can also 

provide useful insight into settlement outcomes for consumers. Noteworthy articles include: Alexander W. Aiken, 

Class Action Notice in the Digital Age. Univ. Penn. L. Rev., Vol. 165, No. 967, 2017; Elizabeth Cabraser, Esq. and 

Andrew Pincus, Esq., Claims-Made Class Action Settlements, 99 Judicature, no. 3 (2015); Scott Dodson, An Opt-In 

Option for Class Actions, Mich. L. Rev., Volume 115, Issue 2, 2016; Robert H. Klonoff et al., Making Class Actions 

Work: The Untapped Potential of the Internet, 69 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 727, 731 (2008). 
10 

Of the research we reviewed, we found only three empirical studies that examined 

compensation or claims rates. These studies typically examined a very small number of cases, or 

had a more limited scope than the current study based on industry focus or data availability. The 

law firm Mayer Brown LLP conducted a study of putative employee and consumer class actions 

filed in or removed to federal court in 2009 and used public access to case dockets to construct a 

dataset.21 The study was able to identify 40 class actions that resulted in settlement, of which 

participation rates were available for only six cases.22 A 2015 study by Fitzpatrick and Gilbert 

assembled a dataset of fifteen class action settlements related to overdraft fees in consumer 

checking accounts.23 Two of these cases required class members to file claims.24 Finally, as part 

of its 2015 Arbitration Study, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau studied class action 

settlements related to consumer financial products. Using a dataset constructed with public 

access to court records, the study found that the median claims rate was 8% for the 105 

settlements for which data was available.25 

In comparison, the FTC Administrator Study examines a broad set of cases, spanning 

various consumer industries, including consumer privacy, product malfunctions, debt collection, 

and checking account overdraft practices. The sample is large enough to provide meaningful 

results. Moreover, information obtained by the FTC from class action administrators was 

significantly more detailed than datasets constructed with publicly available case docket 

information, allowing for a more extensive analysis of settlement characteristics and outcomes. 

For example, given the detail in the data, this is the first study to examine how claims rates differ 

across email and mail notice. 

 

21 Mayer Brown LLP, Do Class Actions Benefit Class Members? An Empirical Analysis of Class Actions 7 (Dec. 11, 

2013), 

https://www.mayerbrown.com/files/uploads/Documents/PDFs/2013/December/DoClassActionsBenefitClassMember

s.pdf. 

22 For the six cases, the participation rates ranged from 0.000006% to 98.72%. 

 

23 Brian T. Fitzpatrick & Robert C. Gilbert, An Empirical Look at Compensation in Consumer Class Actions, 11 

N.Y.U. J.L. & Bus. 767 (2015). 

24 These two cases had compensation rates of 1.76% and 7.39%. 

25 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Arbitration Study, Report to Congress, pursuant to Dodd–Frank Wall 

Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act § 1028(a), March 2015. 
11 

Chapter 2:		Administrator Study

2.1 Summary of Results		

 This analysis represents the first systematic, empirical examination of a broad set of 

consumer class action cases, and the findings represent the most reliable quantitative descriptions 

of consumer class action settlements to date. This study reveals several relationships between 

aspects of the class action cases in the sample, such as claims rates, notice types, check cashing 

rates, and redress amounts. Specifically, the study found: 

 Overall Claims Rate: Across all cases in our sample requiring a claims process, the 

median calculated claims rate was 9%, and the weighted mean (i.e., cases weighted by 

the number of notice recipients) was 4%. We calculated these claims rates as a 

percentage of direct notice recipients. 

 Claims Rates by Method: The claims rates varied by method. On average, campaigns 

that primarily used notice packets with claim forms to inform class members about the 

settlement had claims rates of approximately 10%.26 In contrast, the average claims rate 

for campaigns using primarily postcards and email was about 6% and 3%, respectively. 

Notably, campaigns that utilized postcard notices with a detachable claim form had 

average claims rates more in line with the 10% notice packet claims rate. 

 Approval, Objection, and Exclusion Rates: The vast majority (86%) of submitted claims 

in our sample received approval (i.e., the claims administrator determined that the 

consumer qualified for compensation). Objection and exclusion rates were miniscule; 

only 0.01% of notice recipients excluded themselves from the settlement and 0.0003% 

objected to the proposed settlement. 

 Publication and Direct Notice: The use of publication notice along with direct notice 

does not appear to have a significant relationship with the claims rate in our sample. 

 Compensation Amounts and Check Cashing Rates: Half of the settlements in our sample 

provided median compensation of $69 or more, and a quarter provided median 

compensation of $200 or more. There does not appear to be a statistically significant 

 

26 Throughout the analysis, averages are represented as weighted means where the weights are assigned based on the 

size of the denominator. For claims rates, weights are equivalent to the number of notice recipients. See Section 2.3 

for further details. 
12 

relationship between median compensation and claims rates, but there is a statistically 

significant relationship between median compensation and check cashing rates.27 For 

cases in our sample that required a claims process, the average check cashing rate was 

77%. 

 Notice and Claim Form Language: In a supplementary examination of qualitative notice 

and claim form characteristics, we found that visually prominent, plain English language 

describing payment availability has a significant relationship with the claims rate. 

Conversely, we did not find a statistically significant relationship between other notice 

and claim form characteristics, such as form length and documentation requirements, and 

the claims rate. 

2.2 Data Collection		

 We assembled the dataset with subpoenaed data from seven of the nation’s largest class 

action administrators.28 We identified the seven administrators using FTC’s experience with 

consumer redress, a review of class action aggregator websites, and consideration of hundreds of 

class action settlement websites. The submittals included data for the ten largest settlements 

(gauged by number of notices) from each administrator, in the years 2013, 2014, and 2015. We 

asked administrators to provide data only from Rule 23(b)(3) class actions that used a claims 

process, provided direct mailed or emailed notice to at least some class members, and involved 

consumer issues.29

 We worked closely with each administrator to understand their unique data and caseload 

limitations. If an administrator’s caseload fell short of ten consumer cases in any of the specified 

years, we instructed the administrator to supplement their initial production with cases from 

adjacent years, direct payment cases, and state cases involving consumer issues similar to those 

covered by federal statutes. The inclusion of these additional cases enabled us to assemble a 

sufficiently large dataset to allow for statistical analyses while remaining representative of 

consumer class action settlements. 

 

27 We conduct all statistical significance testing at p<.05 using a two-tailed t-test, unless otherwise noted. 

28 To obtain this information, the Commission issued orders pursuant to Section 6(b) of the FTC Act seeking 

specific class action-related information from the administrators. See Appendix A: FTC 6(b) Order. 

29 For purposes of this study, we asked the administrators to define “class actions involving consumer issues” as any 

class action involving federal or state laws prohibiting (1) unfair or deceptive acts or practices in consumer 

transactions; (2) consumer credit or leasing (including debt collection, credit reporting, and loan servicing); (3) 

consumer privacy; or (4) common law fraud pertaining to the sale of goods or services. 
13 

 Administrators also provided information on the number of unique recipients of class 

action notices and the breakdown of notice recipients across different notice categories. After 

conducting a detailed examination of each case, we augmented the dataset by assigning each 

case to a category, based on the type of practice involved in the lawsuit and the case’s qualitative 

notice and claim form characteristics. In cases where administrators did not provide key data 

points (e.g., the number of unique notice recipients), we used supplementary data provided by 

the administrator to approximate those key points.30

 The final dataset contains 149 cases.31 In presenting the subsequent analyses, we divided 

these cases into categories: cases requiring all notice recipients to file a claim to receive 

compensation (claims made), cases requiring none of the class members to file a claim to receive 

compensation (direct payment), cases requiring some of the recipients to file a claim and 

providing other recipients with direct payment (hybrid with subclasses), and cases providing 

recipients with the option to file a claim to receive more favorable compensation (hybrid with 

option). We further divided the claims made cases into those with standard documentation 

requirements (standard claims made) and those with varying documentation requirements (nonstandard claims made). Standard claims made up the majority of cases in our dataset, 

comprising 70% of the overall sample. Section 2.5, below, provides more details on this 

categorization. 

2.3 Description of Outcome Measures		

Using the data provided by the administrators, we calculated several outcomes to gauge 

claims results across the different types of class action cases in the sample. First, we computed 

the claims, objection, and exclusion rates, all as a percentage of total notice recipients. Second, 

we determined both the claims approval and denial rates as a percentage of number of claims 

 

30 For example, if a notice campaign involved multiple rounds of notice, and provided data on the total number of 

notices sent (but not on the total number of unique notice recipients), we could estimate the number of unique notice 

recipients if the administrator provided the reason for sending multiple rounds of notice and the counts associated 

with each round of notice. 

31 Administrators inadvertently provided 17 cases that did not meet the FTC orders’ definition of cases involving 

consumer issues. Additionally, we could not use 27 cases in the analysis because the administrator did not produce 

useful data points (e.g., because the defendant company—rather than the administrator—handled approval of claims 

and disbursement of checks, or because the administrator was not able to provide the breakdown between the 

claims-eligible and ineligible population). Finally, in 6 cases, the vast majority of notice recipients were unlikely to 

have been eligible to file a claim for monetary relief. These cases primarily involved vehicle repair, where all 

owners of a particular vehicle received notice due to a malfunction, but only some incurred repair expenses (and 

were therefore eligible for compensation through the settlement). We excluded these 50 cases from all analyses. 
14 

filed. Finally, we calculated the check cashing rate as a percentage of checks mailed to class 

members. 

Figures 1 and 2 display the distribution of cases based on the claims rate and number of 

notice recipients, respectively. Neither the claims rate nor the recipient number is symmetrically 

distributed. Given the skewed distributions, we considered whether to describe the results using 

the mean, median, or a weighted mean.32 Each of these has its benefits and drawbacks in the 

context of these data.33 For example, the mean claims rate is significantly affected by the high, 

outlier values in Figure 1, which suggests that the median claims rate likely provides a more 

informative measure. At the same time, however, neither the unweighted mean nor the median 

reflect the fact that some settlements are arguably more significant than others depending on the 

number of consumers involved. Additionally, it is not clear whether the weighted mean is 

perfectly descriptive of the data because it would overwhelmingly reflect outcomes associated 

with the few settlements involving large-scale notice campaigns, as seen in Figure 2, and, thus, 

may not be representative of the typical class action settlement. For these reasons, we have 

presented many of the subsequent analyses using two statistics—the median and the weighted 

mean—so that the reader can make informed inferences based on these summary measures. 

 

32 The median value, or 50th percentile, of a distribution is its midpoint. That is, 50% of cases have claims rates that 

are higher than the median claims rate, and 50% have lower claims rates. The unweighted mean (or average) is 

calculated by summing the claims rates across all cases and dividing by the total number of cases; thus, each case 

would contribute an equal share to the final calculated mean. In this analysis, the weighted mean (or weighted 

average) is calculated by assigning a weight to each case’s claims rate equal to the size of the denominator, or the 

number of notice recipients. Thus, if a case sends notice to twice as many class members, it receives twice the 

weight in the weighted mean calculation. 

33 In contrast to symmetric distributions, the unweighted mean and median are not equal in asymmetric distributions. 

Specifically, in skewed right distributions, the unweighted mean is typically higher than the median. 
15 

Figure 1:		Distribution of Cases, by Claims Rate

Sample: Cases that require a claims process. Excludes 8 cases where calculated claims rate is greater than 100%. 

See footnote 38 for further details on these 8 cases. 

Figure 2:			Distribution of Cases, by Number of Notice Recipients

Sample: Cases that require a claims process. 

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80%

Percentage of Cases

Claims Rate

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

Fewer than 100K 100K to 500K 500K to 5M 5M to 20M

Percentage of Cases

Number of Notice Recipients
16 

2.4 Limitations

Several caveats and limitations apply to the data analysis. First, our empirical analysis of 

the administrative data is descriptive. Specifically, differences in outcomes across various 

settlement characteristics do not reflect causal estimates because these characteristics may be 

correlated with unobservable qualities. For example, we have observed higher claims rates for 

cases that utilize notice packets compared to those that use email. However, we cannot conclude 

from the analysis that the use of those notice packets caused the higher claims rate because the 

higher claims rate may simply reflect the fact that notice packet campaigns, for example, involve 

companies with more detailed customer records or closer relationships with their customers. 

Additionally, although we conducted supplementary regression analyses that include controls 

that are available in the dataset, we were not able to control for intangible settlement 

characteristics, such as severity of injury, defendant company reputation, and availability of 

consumer contact information. 

Second, the claims rate, as well as other outcome measures calculated as a percentage of 

notice recipients, are unlikely to offer precise measures of consumers’ responsiveness. For 

example, in some settlements, particularly those that utilize publication notice along with direct 

notice, the calculated claims rate represents an upper bound of responsiveness resulting from 

direct notice because eligible individuals who filed claims may not have received the direct 

notice. In other instances, the calculated claims rate may be an understatement of a true measure 

of claims filing if only a subset of notice recipients was eligible to file a claim, which would 

happen if, for example, all owners of a defective product received notice, but only those who 

experienced a malfunction were eligible to file a claim.34

Third, while the sample includes economically significant cases involving consumer 

issues, it does not represent all such consumer class actions administered from 2013 to 2015. For 

example, administrators often face data limitations (e.g., difficulties with accessing archived, 

historical data), which prevented some of them from submitting all cases which met the FTC 

order’s specifications. 

 Fourth, data limitations sometimes prevented administrators from producing every 

statistic for every settlement requested by the FTC order. Therefore, sample sizes differ across 

 

34 While we cannot determine the direction of the overall bias nor account for the biasing factors in precise terms, 

we have presented the results with these limitations in mind. For example, we display claims rate summary statistics 

separately for cases with and without publication notice, and control for cases that utilized publication notice in the 

regression analysis. Moreover, we have omitted all cases where it was obvious that a small portion of notice 

recipients was eligible to file a claim, as explained in footnote 31. Starting with Figure 5, we also exclude the 8 

cases where the calculated claims rate is higher than 100%, or where it is almost certain that many more individuals 

beyond those receiving notice were eligible to file a claim. See footnote 38 for further details on these 8 cases. 
17 

analyses because they reflect the number of settlements providing that particular statistic. 

Accordingly, the universe of cases is not always constant across the various figures and tables in 

this report. 

2.5 Analysis

 As described above, we assembled a dataset containing 149 settlements that meet four 

criteria: involve consumer issues, provide sufficient data for the analysis, provide data on the 

number of notice recipients eligible to file a claim, and do not clearly represent settlements 

where a small minority of notice recipients meets the claim eligibility criteria. 

Case	Composition	

We arranged the cases by characteristics including: the type of class action (e.g., claims 

made, direct payment, etc.), the type of practice involved (e.g., misrepresentation, improper 

payment, etc.), and whether the case was in federal or state court. 

Composition of Cases by Type of Class Action: The data for consumer class action 

settlement characteristics are often difficult to interpret, particularly in determining the number 

of individuals eligible to file a claim. For example, defendant companies frequently have 

customer records for some, but not all, individuals affected by the alleged practices. Other times, 

a class contains multiple subclasses, where some class members receive a direct payment as 

compensation (e.g., because they are current, active account-holders), while others must file a 

claim.

To partially address these difficulties, we divided the cases into the categories listed in 

Table 1 through a detailed examination of the case documents for each settlement.35 We 

conducted the bulk of the analysis on the set of cases that require a claims process—standard and 

non-standard claims made cases and hybrid cases with subclasses—because they provide data 

that allow for a meaningful measure of consumer responsiveness to direct notice. Standard 

claims make up the majority of cases in our dataset, comprising 70% of the overall sample. 

Non-standard claims made, direct payment, and hybrid cases comprise the remaining 30% of our 

dataset. 

 

35 This typically involved referencing the notice(s) sent to consumers, but sometimes also involved consulting court 

filings. 
18 

Table 1:		Composition of Cases, by Type of Class Action

Type of Class Action Description  

Count of

Cases

Standard Claims Made

All notice recipients are required to file a claim to be

eligible to receive compensation.

Documentation requirements, if any, are similar for all

claimants.

107

Non‐standard Claims Made

All notice recipients are required to file a claim to be

eligible to receive compensation.

Documentation requirements differ significantly across

claimants.   

Includes claims made cases where claimants have the

option to submit additional documentation (e.g., to

receive more favorable payment or to elect the form of

payment), and claims made cases where certain

subclasses have more stringent documentation

requirements than others.  

12

Direct Payment

No notice recipients are required to file a claim to receive

compensation.   

All distribution of compensation is handled automatically,

through mailed checks or account credits.

21

Hybrid with Subclasses

Some notice recipients are required to file a claim to be

eligible to receive compensation, while others receive

direct compensation.  

Note: The dataset includes only cases for which data is

available on the number of notice recipients eligible to file

a claim.  

5

Hybrid with Option

No recipients are required to file a claim to receive

compensation.    

At least some recipients are given the option to submit a

claim (e.g., to receive a more favorable payment or to

elect the form of the payment).

4

Total      149
19 

 Composition of Cases by Practice Type: As Figure 3 indicates, the data set contains a 

variety of practice-categories. Each of the practice-categories typically involves a broad set of 

practices, which likely resulted in various degrees of consumer harm. For example, the practice 

category misrepresentation includes settlements where the defendant company allegedly 

misrepresented characteristics of major purchases—such as vehicles or diamonds—while at the 

same time including cases that involve misrepresentations of relatively minor purchases—such 

as inexpensive grocery items. 

Figure 3:		Composition of Cases, by Type of Unlawful Practice

Sample: Claims-made, direct payment, and hybrid cases 

Composition of Cases by Federal and State: Figure 4 displays the breakdown of cases in 

our data set between cases brought in state and federal court. As noted, we solicited state cases 

from administrators only when their number of consumer-related federal cases fell short of the 

total number of requested cases (30). We excluded cases that involve practices involving statespecific statutes (e.g., California’s Automobile Sales Finance Act and Labor Code). Overall, 

federal cases represent the vast majority (93%) of the sample. 

30

29

22

15

15

14

7

6

6

5

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

Improper Payment (Charged or Credited)

Misrepresentation

Miscellaneous

Debt Collection  (including FDCPA Violations)

Mortgage‐Related

Consumer Privacy

Overdraft Practices

Price Inflation/ Anticompetitive Practices

Telephone‐Related  (including TCPA Violations)

Product Malfunction

Number of Cases
20 

Figure 4:		Composition of Cases, by State versus Federal Court

Sample: Claims-made, direct payment, and hybrid cases 

General	Summary	Statistics	

Table 2 displays detailed summary statistics of several key variables in the dataset for the 

sample of cases that require a claims process.36 For each variable, the table shows the number of 

cases providing data and select percentile ranks of the distribution (including the 50th percentile, 

or the median). The table also displays weighted means for variables that are rates.37 

 Number of Notice Recipients: As we noted earlier, the number of notice recipients 

differed significantly across the cases in our sample, with the lowest 10% of cases having fewer 

than 1,877 notice recipients (the 10th percentile) and the highest 10% of cases having more than 

2.8 million notice recipients (the 90th percentile). The median number of notice recipients in our 

sample was 87,195 (i.e., half of the cases in the sample sent notice to fewer recipients, and half 

sent notice to more recipients). This is consistent with Figure 2, which shows that the majority 

of cases in the sample had fewer than 100,000 recipients. 

 

36 For the remainder of the analysis, we define “cases that require a claims process” as: standard claims made cases, 

non-standard claims made cases, and hybrid cases with subclasses. For hybrid cases with subclasses, measures of 

consumer responsiveness (claims, exclusion, and objection rates) are calculated as a percentage of the number of 

notice recipients eligible to file a claim. 

37 Claims, objection, and exclusion rates are weighted by number of direct notice recipients; claims approval and 

denial rates are weighted by number of claims filed; and the check cashing rate is weighted by number of checks 

sent. 

Federal

Court

139 Cases

93%

State

Court

10 Cases

7%
21 

Table 2: Detailed Summary Statistics on Key Variables

Variable:

# of CasesProvidingData

Percentiles

10th 25th 

50th(Median) 75th 90

# Notice Recipients 124 1,877 9,822 87,195 584,594 2,8# Claims Filed 124 174 1,896 10,356 47,252 12Claims Rate

All Cases 124 2% 3% 10% 23% 49

Cases where Claims Rate <100% 116 2% 3% 9% 19% 34

# Claims Approved 121 159 1,464 7,401 31,361 10Claims Approval Rate 121 55% 79% 93% 97% 99# Claims Denied 119 3 89 917 4,735 14Claims Denial Rate 119 1% 3% 7% 20% 47# Objections 82 0 0 0 2 8Objection Rate 82 0.0000% 0.0000% 0.0000% 0.0004% 0.0# Exclusions 118 0 1 12 51 19Exclusion Rate 118 0.00% 0.00% 0.01% 0.03% 0.1Length of Notice Period (in Days) 115 47 60 90 137 21Median Amount of Compensation 116 $10 $22 $69 $200 $5Mean Amount of Compensation 116 $12 $25 $79 $259 $1# Checks Sent 114 120 1,179 7,311 33,156 12# Checks Cashed 112 132 1,281 7,238 32,910 11Check Cashing Rate 112 80% 90% 94% 97% 99

Sample: Cases that require a claims process 
22 

Claims Rates: Table 2 displays two sets of summary statistics for the claims rate: one for 

all the claims-requiring cases in the sample and another excluding 8 cases where the calculated 

“claims rate” exceeded 100%. For the second set, the median claims rate was 9%, and the 

weighted mean—where each case is weighted based on its number of notice recipients—was 

4%.38 The 10th and 90th percentiles for this set indicate that in the bottom 10% of cases, at most 

2% of the recipient pool filed a claim, while in the top 10% of cases, at least 34% of the recipient 

pool filed a claim. 

Approval Rates: Typically, claims administrators evaluate each submitted claim to 

determine if it meets the requirements for participation in the settlement. They may approve the 

claim, deny the claim, or ask for additional information from the claimant. The median claim 

approval rate was 93%, and the weighted mean was 86%. On average, 15% of claims were 

likely incomplete or inconsistent with the definition of the class, and, thus, denied by the 

administrator.39 

Exclusion and Objection Rates: Class members who do not wish to be bound by the 

terms of the settlement may file an exclusion request. Those who opt-out in this way retain the 

right to participate in a different lawsuit on the same issues, but they do not receive payment in 

the class action. Class members also have the right to object to the proposed settlement, for 

example, if they believe it is unfair or inadequate. Class members who do nothing in response to 

the notice will automatically become bound by the settlement terms. The percentage of 

consumers who excluded themselves or objected were miniscule, with weighted averages of 

these rates hovering at 0.0003% and 0.01%, respectively. 

Compensation Amounts: Because settlements provide a range of compensation, which is 

typically tied to the class member’s specific subclass or the claimant’s ability to produce 

documentation, we asked administrators to provide summary statistics on the mean and median 

 

38 Because we calculated claims rates as a percentage of direct notice recipients, claims rates can surpass 100% if 

individuals who did not receive direct notice were eligible to file claims. This would be most likely to occur when a 

class is composed of both known members (who receive direct notice) and unknown members (who do not receive 

direct notice and are, thus unaccounted for in the denominator). Such cases will typically use a publication notice 

campaign in conjunction with direct notice, as explained in the “Method of Notice” section, below. While 57 cases 

use publication notice along with direct notice, and hence could theoretically have claims rates that exceed 100%, 

only 8 cases have claims rates that reach this level. The calculated claims rates for these 8 cases range from 219% to 

3263%, with an average of 1138%. Because it is clear that the calculated claims rates in these cases do not 

accurately reflect consumer responsiveness to direct notice, we excluded these 8 cases from all subsequent tables 

displaying claims rates. 

39 The approval rate statistics include claims that the administrator eventually approved after asking for more 

information from the claimant following the initial claims submission. Table 2 does not display statistics for rates of 

asking for additional information because the administrators did not submit this data in a consistent manner. 
23 

redress amounts given to individuals.40 In considering these statistics, we concluded that the 

median likely offers a more meaningful measure of “typical” compensation than the mean 

because the mean is likely skewed by a small number of class members receiving large amounts. 

Median compensation in the sample is $69 (calculated using the set of statistics representing the 

median amount of compensation for each case). While about a quarter of the settlements 

provided the modest amount of $22 or less in median compensation, the top quarter of 

settlements provided median compensation of $200 or more.41

Check Cashing Rates: Finally, the last row of Table 2 shows that, in claims-requiring 

cases, the median check-cashing rate was 94% while the weighted average was 77%; this 

discrepancy may be due to the fact that larger cases (which receive more weight in the weighted 

mean calculation) typically provide smaller amounts of compensation. 

Method	of	Notice	

Class action notice campaigns employ a variety of methods to inform potential class 

members of their eligibility to file a claim. Usually, campaigns use direct notice when contact 

information exists and publication notice when such information is absent or exists for only some 

class members. 

The specific method of direct notice (e.g., email, postcard, or notice packets) usually 

depends on one or more of the following factors: the available consumer contact information, the 

cost of sending notice to the class, and the defendant company’s past interactions with class 

members (e.g., many defendant companies may use email to reach their customers who purchase 

online because of its low cost and greater accuracy). 

The dataset identifies the number of notices sent via each of the following methods: 

email, postcard, and notice packet.42 In 35 cases, the campaigns used both mail and email to 

reach different groups of consumers, typically because there were different sets of contact 

information available, or because the first attempt of notice was returned as undeliverable. For 

 

40 The vast majority of the sample contains cases that provided checks, or the option to elect a check, as 

compensation. Only 8 cases in the sample provided vouchers, coupons, gift cards, or account credit as 

compensation to class members (without the option to elect a check). Administrators did not provide redemption 

data for these forms of compensation, and in all but 2 cases, they did not provide summary statistics such as the 

median or mean amount of compensation provided by the voucher, coupon, gift card, or account credit. 

41 Mean compensation in the sample of cases was $79 (as calculated using the set of statistics representing the 

median amount of compensation for each case). 

42 We define “notice packet” as any non-postcard mailed notice, typically consisting of a detailed notice with a 

claims form. 
24 

campaigns that involved multiple methods, for the purposes of simplicity, we grouped together 

cases where the notice campaign attempted to reach three-quarters or more of the notice 

recipients via a specific method.43 For example, if the campaign used email notice to contact the 

vast majority of recipients, we classify this case as one using email notice, even if some class 

members received mailed notice.44

The data also indicate whether publication supplemented a direct notice in a particular 

campaign. While publication can take various forms—including general-audience internet 

banners, newspaper or magazine notifications, and targeted social media or search engine 

advertisements—we were unable to identify the form such publication notice took for most 

cases. This inability to assess the effectiveness of specific publication notice types represents 

one of the limitations of our analysis. 

Additionally, because class size information was unavailable for cases involving 

publication notice, we calculated the claims rate for those cases with an imperfect denominator 

(i.e., using the same approach for cases that utilize direct notice only—as a percentage of total 

notice recipients).45 Therefore, our calculated claims rates for cases that used publication notice 

likely overstate true class member responsiveness to the campaign because at least some 

claimants are unaccounted for in the denominator (due to receiving notice through publication 

rather than direct notice). 

Slightly more than half of all cases in the sample used mailed notice packets to notify 

class members, with the remainder split between postcard and emailed notice campaigns. A little 

more than half of the cases provided direct notice only, while the other cases provided direct 

notice in conjunction with publication notice. Campaigns in only 15 cases, or about 13% of the 

cases providing data, attempted to reach eligible class members more than once. For these 15 

cases, the subsequent notice typically consisted of a reminder postcard or email to potential class 

members who had not yet filed a claim. See Figure 5. 

 

 

43 The exception to this is the notice-level analysis in Table 4. 

44 For the analyses that display outcomes across direct notice type, we excluded the 13 cases where the email-mail 

split was more even than 75/25. 

45 This uncertainty makes it difficult to generate claims rate estimates for such cases because the class typically 

includes both known class members (those who could be contacted directly) and unknown class members (those 

who could have seen a publication notice). 
25 

Figure 5:		Composition of Cases, by Method of Notice

Samples: Cases that require a claims process and provide data on the specified method-of-notice characteristic 

(which varies across charts). Excludes 8 cases where calculated claims rate is greater than 100%. 

Claims Rates by Notice Method: Figure 6 shows the weighted mean and median claims 

rates associated with various notice method characteristics. The weighted mean claims rate for 

all cases requiring a claims process was 4%, and the median was 9%. There are marked 

differences in the claims rates across notice methods. Claims rates for notice campaigns using 

notice packets were the highest, with a median claims rate of 16% and a weighted mean of 10%. 

Notice campaigns that use postcards had lower rates, with a median and weighted mean of about 

6% to 7%. Finally, email notice campaigns had the lowest mean and median claims rates of 2% 

and 3%, respectively. 

26 Email

Cases

22

Postcard

Cases

55

Notice

Packet

Cases

Case Count by Direct Notice Type

59 Cases

Use

Direct

Notice

Only

49 Cases Use

Direct &

Publication

Notice

Case Count by Publication Notice

Component

15 Cases

with two

or more

reach

attempts

101

Cases

with one

reach

attempt

Case Count by Number of Reach

Attempts
26 

Claims Rates and Publication Notices: Figure 6 also displays summary statistics of 

claims rates for cases involving direct notice only as well as for cases that use both direct notice 

and publication notice. In comparing these two case types, the weighted mean or the median 

values yielded different results. Specifically, with regard to the weighted mean, cases with a 

publication component had, on average, claims rates that were 2 percentage points higher than 

those without it. However, when considering the median claims rate, cases with a publication 

component performed worse (3 percentage points lower). Because we know that our claims rate 

measure—when measured as a percentage of notice recipients as we do throughout the 

analysis—is likely to be an overstatement in cases that utilize publication notice, this finding is 

somewhat surprising.46 

Claims Rates and Multiple Notices: The bottom set of results in Figure 6 displays claims 

rates based on rounds of notice: cases that send multiple communications to class members have 

average and median claims rates that are more than twice as high as cases that attempt to reach 

class members just once.

 

46 Although, as discussed previously, data limitations do not allow us to estimate the causal impact of publication 

notice on claims rates, this set of findings indicates that average and median claims rates are within 2 percentage 

points when comparing across the set of all cases (the first row of Figure 6) and the set of cases utilizing direct 

notice only (the fifth row of Figure 6). Thus, it appears that, when looking at the sample as a whole, the cases with 

publication notice are unlikely to be introducing meaningful bias in our measure of claims rates, which Section 2.4 

of this report had discussed as a potential limitation of the analysis. 
27 

Figure 6:		Claims Rate Summary Statistics, by Method of Notice

Sample: Cases that require a claims process and provide data on the specified method-of-notice characteristic. 

Excludes 8 cases where calculated claims rate is greater than 100%. 

Claim	Form	Inclusion	and	Visibility		

This section examines whether average and median claims rates among the cases in the 

sample differ depending on whether or not the notification includes a claim form, in addition to 

case information.47 For notice packets, we also examine whether the location of the claim form 

(e.g., on the first or last page of the packet) yields differences in claim rates. 

One would expect that noticeable, easy-to-find claim forms not only reduce the 

recipient’s effort to file a claim, but also signal that an action is required to receive 

 

47 Mailed class action notifications often include claim forms in addition to case information. Claim forms typically 

require the claimant to provide updated mailing information and to sign a statement attesting that he or she is 

entitled to compensation based on the class definition. Depending on the case, the claim form may also have a 

series of additional questions or documentation requirements. Notice packets usually (but not always) include claim 

forms at the end of the packet, while postcard notices may include claim forms as a detachable postcard. 

4%

9%

6%

4%

3%

6%

10%

4%

1 reach attempt

≥2 reach attempts

  Publication & Direct Notice

     Direct Notice Only

Email

Postcard

Notice Packet

  All Cases

Weighted Mean

8%

17%

8%

11%

2%

7%

16%

9%

Median
28 

compensation. Thus, it is reasonable to expect that noticeable, easy-to-find forms yield higher 

claims rates. As discussed below, the results support this hypothesis. 

Post Card Notifications: As indicated in Table 3, postcards that included a detachable 

claim form had, on average, claims rates that are twice as high as those that did not have this 

feature. For the cases in our sample, however, administrators used detachable claim form 

postcards at only about half the rate (8 cases) of the more common practice of sending postcards 

without claim forms (14 cases). 

Notice Packets: Nearly all the cases in our sample that used notice packets included 

claim forms in the mailing—only 3 of the 55 did not. Although the sample size for this group is 

too small to draw definitive comparisons, the results from our sample indicate that notice packets 

that included claim forms had higher average filing rates. Based on the divergence between the 

median and average mean summary statistics, there does not appear to be a clear difference in 

claims rates based on the location of the claims form in notice packets that included forms. 

Table 3:			Claims Rate Summary Statistics, by Claim Form Inclusion and Visibility

Sample:

# of Cases

Providing Data

Claims Rate

Weighted

Mean Median

Cases Using Postcard Notice 22 6% 7%

A: Postcard Included Claim Form 8 10% 12%

B: Postcard Did not Include Claim Form 14 5% 5%

Cases Using Notice Packets 55 10% 16%

A:  Notice Packet Included Claim Form 52 11% 18%

A1: Notice Packet Included Claim Form at the

Beginning of Packet or as a Return‐Addressed

Postcard

8 18% 15%

A2:  Notice Packet Included Claim Form at the End

of Packet

38 11% 17%

B:  Notice Packet Did not Include Claim Form 3 2% 4%

Sample: Postcard and notice packet cases that require a claims process. Excludes 8 cases where calculated claims 

rate is greater than 100%. 
29 

Success	of	Delivery	

Table 4 displays the undeliverable rate across notice types. Unlike the other outcome 

measures, we calculated the undeliverable rate at the notice-level rather than the case-level 

because, as noted earlier, 35 cases used multiple methods of notice to contact class members, and 

13 of these cannot be clearly categorized as primarily using one type of notice. Thus, we 

summed the number of notice packets, postcards, and emails sent, as well as the number of each 

type returned as undeliverable across all cases, and calculated the undeliverable rate in this way. 

Undeliverable rates were similar across all notice types, ranging from 12% to 15%. Table 4 also 

reveals that, although only 60% of the cases in the sample use emails and/or postcards to contact 

class members (see Figure 5), the vast majority (92%) of notices in the sample were sent using 

these methods. Thus, the largest cases were more likely to use email and postcards to contact 

class members. 

Table 4:			Percentage of Notices Undeliverable, by Direct Notice Type

Direct Notice Type:

# of Cases

Providing

Data

# of Notices

Sent

# Notices

Undeliverable

% of Notices

Undeliverable

Notice Packet 64 8,700,895 1,030,414 12%

Postcard 59 40,441,453 4,847,993 12%

Email 43 55,945,497 8,150,638 15%

Total 105,087,845 14,029,045 13%

Sample: Claims-made, direct payment, and hybrid cases. Cases can appear multiple times across rows if they used 

multiple types of notice to contact class members. 

 

 
30 

Opening	Rates	

We received email opening data for 10 cases, 28% of all cases that notify class members 

via email notice.48 We received hyperlink click-through data—where the hyperlink is generally 

the address of the settlement website or a link to the online claim form—for four cases. In these 

cases, we found that opening and click-through rates were, on average, low. The data show that, 

for recipients whom the administrator attempted to contact with an email notice (“attempted 

notices” in the table below), an average of 14% opened the notices, a rate that increased to 17% 

when only considering delivered notices. The average hyperlink click-through rate was 4% as a 

percentage of notices sent, and 20% as a percentage of notices opened. These findings suggest 

that—at least for this group of cases—one driver of the low claims rates may be the fact that few 

people open and interact with class action email notices.49 See Table 5. 

Table 5:		Email Interaction Summary Statistics for Select Cases

Statistic:

# of

Cases

Providing

Data Median

Weighted

Mean

Opening Rate

% of Attempted Notices That Were Opened 10 13% 14%

% of Delivered Notices That Were Opened 10 15% 17%

  

Click‐Through Rate

% of Attempted Notices That Had Hyperlink Clicked 4 3% 4%

% of Opened Notices That Had Hyperlink Clicked 4 17% 20%

Sample: Select claims-requiring cases providing email interaction data. 

 

48 We omitted an extreme value in this analysis, a case which is 13 times larger than the average in terms of number 

of notice recipients with an email open-rate that is 5 times larger than the average. 

49 Claims rate summary statistics for the limited sample of cases with email opening data are similar to those 

calculated for the full sample of email cases, as displayed in Figure 6. For the 10 cases with email opening data, the 

median claims rate is 3%, and the weighted average is 5%. On the other hand, claims rate summary statistics for the 

cases with click-through data are substantially higher than for the full sample of email case; these 4 cases have a 

median claims rate of 19% and a weighted average claims rate of 20%. 
31 

Amount	of	Median	Redress	

Figure 7 displays cases across various ranges of median redress for both direct payment 

and claims-requiring cases. For both types of cases in our sample, the most common median 

redress was in the $10 to $50 range. About a quarter of claims-requiring cases offered median 

compensation of $200 or more. For cases that entailed a claims process, the smallest number (8 

cases or 7% of cases providing data) fell under the category of $10 or less in median 

compensation. 

Figure 7: Composition of Cases, by Median Redress

Check Cashing Rates: Figure 8 presents the weighted average check-cashing rates for 

each of the median redress categories. Check-cashing rates for settlements that provide direct 

payment were considerably lower (55%) than they were for claims-requiring cases (77%), which 

one might expect because check recipients for the latter group went through the effort to file a 

claim. Average check-cashing rates tended to increase as median redress amount increases, with 

the largest increase occurring at lower values of redress; check-cashing rates remained relatively 

constant near 80% for direct payment cases and hovered near 90% for claims-requiring cases 

once median redress reaches the $50 to $100 category. 

Less than

$10,

4 Cases $10 to

$50,

6 Cases

$50 to

$100,

$100 to 4 Cases

$200,

1 Case

More

than

$200,

3 Cases

Case Count, by Median Redress

Direct Payment Cases

Less than

$10,

8 Cases

$10 to

$50,

41 Cases

$50 to

$100,

16 Cases

$100 to

$200,

19 Cases

More

than

$200,

28 Cases

Case Count, by Median Redress

Claims‐Requiring Cases
32 

Figure 8:		Weighted Mean Check‐Cashing Rate, by Median Redress and Case Type

Claims Rate and Redress Amounts: Figure 9 displays the weighted mean claims rate for 

each median redress category. The results do not indicate a meaningful relationship between a 

case’s level of redress and its claims rate, with the claims rate for the less-than-$10 category only 

1 percentage point lower than the more-than-$200 category.50 When comparing across the lowest 

redress level (less than $10) and the second highest redress range ($100 to $200, which 

represents at least a ten-fold increase in redress), claims rates were 1.7 times as high for the latter 

group. Although this difference is statistically significant, it is only 4 percentage points. The 

lack of a strong relationship between redress level and claims filing is surprising because it 

suggests that higher redress amounts may not be more motivating to consumers. However, many 

consumers may not read the notice carefully, or at all. Also, as illustrated in Figure 10.G. about 

a third of the notices do not provide any compensation estimate. Thus, many consumers may not 

file simply because they are not aware of the redress amounts. 

 

 

50 In a regression framework controlling for the observable notice characteristics provided by the administrators, 

there is no statistically significant relationship (p=0.738) between median redress and the claim filing rate, but there 

is a statistically significant relationship (p=0.009) between median redress and the check cashing rate. Median 

redress is included as a continuous variable in the regression. See Appendix B: Additional Tables – Administrator 

Study. 

55%

39%

52%

81%

83%

75%

77%

68%

76%

91%

92%

94%

All Compensation Amounts

Less than $10

$10 to $50

$50 to $100

$100 to $200

More than $200

Direct Payment Cases Claims‐Requiring Cases
33 

Figure 9:		Weighted Mean Claims Rate, by Median Redress

2.6 Incidence of Notice and Claim Form Characteristics

 In most cases, administrators provided copies of the notices that they mailed or emailed 

to class members. Additionally, for mail campaigns that included a claim form with the 

informational notice, administrators typically provided a copy of the form. We independently 

examined qualitative characteristics of the submitted notices (e.g., the amount of legal 

information contained at the top of the notice) and claim form characteristics (e.g., the length of 

the claim form). In this section, we describe the incidence of these characteristics in our sample. 

In the next section, we examine how these characteristics relate to the claims rate using a 

regression framework.51 

Notice	Characteristics	

 An analysis of the notices submitted by administrators reveals substantial variation in the 

way notices presented information to consumers. We developed a coding rubric to classify 

various qualitative characteristics of notices: the amount of legal information contained at the top 

of the notice, whether the notice included a table of options (which typically lists the claims 

filing deadline, along with other options such as excluding oneself, doing nothing, or attending a 

hearing); whether the notice used visually prominent, explicit language to describe the 

 

51 In contrast to the analysis presented in section 2.5, we have not displayed medians or (unadjusted) weighted 

means across qualitative characteristics because many of these characteristics are highly correlated with each other. 

Instead, we have used a regression framework to examine differences in claims rates based on the characteristics 

because such a framework allows us to hold other factors constant. 

6%

4%

7%

10%

7%

Less than $10

$10 to $50

$50 to $100

$100 to $200

More than $200
34 

consequences of doing nothing; whether the notice used visually prominent, explicit language to 

describe the necessity of filing a claim; whether the notice contained a statement explaining the 

relevance of the notice to the recipient; and whether the notice used visually prominent, plain 

English language to describe the amount and availability of payment.52 

 Figure 10 displays the incidence of the various notice characteristics for the 98 claimsrequiring cases for which the administrator was able to provide a copy of the notice sent to class 

members.53 These characteristics often vary both within and across notice types. 

 According to Figure 10, Panel A, notice packets in our sample tended to provide more 

legal information at the top of the notice than email and postcard notices. Less than 10% of 

notice packet cases provided no legal information at the top of the notice, while approximately 

half of email and postcard notices provided no such information. This discrepancy is not 

surprising given differences in space constraints across notice types. A similar trend is evident 

when considering the inclusion of a table of options (Panel B): notice packets included a table in 

the majority of notices (60%), while no postcards and only 15% of email notices in our sample 

included such a table. 

 The two most common ways in which notices in claims-requiring cases emphasized that 

class members must take action to receive settlement benefits were: (1) explaining the 

consequences of doing nothing (e.g., if you do nothing, you receive no payment from the 

settlement); and (2) signaling the necessity of filing a claim to receive payment (e.g., you must 

file a claim to receive a payment or filing a claim is the only way to receive payment). About 

20% of notices included the “do nothing” explanation prominently (Figure 10, Panel C). In 

addition, approximately 30% of all cases included an explanation about the necessity of filing a 

claim (Panel D). Finally, 35% included either explanation prominently.54

 

52 See Appendix C: Notice Characteristic Coding Methodology – Administrator Study. Two coders separately 

categorized each characteristic according to the methodology. We reexamined any deviations in coding before 

assigning these characteristics to a final category. Prior to resolution, the inter-rater reliability, or the percentage 

agreement between coders, was above 75 percent for all but two of the coded characteristics. For the “consequences 

of doing nothing” and “necessity of filing a claim” categories, reliability rates were 62 percent and 54 percent, 

respectively. The majority of the discrepancies were due to the coder missing a statement, rather than substantive 

disagreements. Because of the lower level of agreement for these two categories, we created a composite measure 

when analyzing the impact of these characteristics on the claims rate, which we refer to as “take action language” in 

Table 8, below. A notice is coded as having “take action language” if it prominently included either language 

describing the consequences of doing nothing or the necessity of filing a claim. The level of agreement for this 

composite measure is 67 percent. 

53 For notice campaigns that utilized multiple types of individual notice, and, thus, for which we received multiple 

copies of individual notices, we coded the notice which the majority of class members received. 

54 We do not display this characteristic graphically in Figure 10. It is the composite of Panels C and D. 
35 

 Panel E of Figure 10 displays the incidence of notices that signal the relevance of the 

mailing or email to recipients. We provide a full explanation of this categorization in Appendix 

C. In general, we categorized cases that contain the phrase, “our records indicate” as containing 

a relevant statement (e.g., our records indicate you are eligible for a payment or our records 

indicate you purchased {misrepresented product}). Cases categorized as not containing a 

relevant statement usually included an alternative statement containing the words “if” and 

“could” (e.g., if you purchased {product}, you could receive benefits from a class action 

settlement). This language was not always within a notice campaign’s control, if for example, 

company records did not identify definite class members. This would result in a notice campaign 

using the more vague “if/could” language. Overall, approximately 30% of notices included a 

statement that signals relevance to the recipient. 

 Panels F and G of Figure 10 address notice language related to the settlement payment. 

Panel F displays the incidence of cases that include “plain English” and/or “certain” language. 

As explained in detail in Appendix C, notices with plain English payment language prominently 

displayed words such as money, payment, refund, cash, reimbursement, or an amount 

accompanied by the “$” symbol. In general, payment language that we categorized as “certain” 

included a definite statement about the class member’s receipt of payment following filing a 

claim. About half of the cases in the sample include neither the plain English nor certain 

language, and only 12% of the cases included both. 

 Again, the notice campaigns were not always able to list specific, guaranteed payment 

amounts. For example, in pro rata cases, the amount of the payment depended on the number of 

claims filed. However, any settlement providing cash benefits can employ easily-understood 

payment language to communicate with recipients who may be unfamiliar with technical 

language such as share of the settlement fund or settlement benefits.

55 While 94% of the cases in 

Figure 10 provide cash benefits,56 only 40% of the cases used plain English payment language. 

 

55 We coded these commonly-occurring technical phrases as not “plain English” if they were not accompanied by a 

prominent statement using more easily-understood language, such as payment or money. 

56 The remaining 6% of cases provided only coupons or vouchers as compensation. 
36 

Figure 10: Incidence of Notice Characteristics, by Notice Type

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

All Cases

Notice Packet

Postcard

Email

A: Top of Notice Legal Information

Legal captionPlaintiff and defendant names, case number, and court nameCourt name onlyNo legal information

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 

All Cases

Notice Packet

Postcard

Email

B: Table of Options

IncludedNot included

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

All Cases

Notice Packet

Postcard

Email

C: Consequences of Doing Nothing

Prominently states that doing nothing results in no paymentCannot be categorizedDoes not mention consequences of doing nothing

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 

All Cases

Notice Packet

Postcard

Email

D: Necessity of Filing Claim

Prominently states that claim is required to receive paymeCannot be categorizedDoes not mention claim filing requirement
37 

Figure 10: Incidence of Notice Characteristics, by Notice Type (Continued)

Notes: Sample consists of 98 claims-requiring cases for which we obtained a copy of the individual notice in response to the FTC ordAppendix C for details on the categorization. 

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

All Cases

Notice Packet

Postcard

Email

E: Relevance of Notice

Relevant statementNo relevant statement

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 

All Cases

Notice Packet

Postcard

Email

F: Payment Availability

Plain English and certainPlain English onlyCertain onlyNeither plain English nor certain

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

All Cases

Notice Packet

Postcard

Email

G: Payment Amount

Exact or minimum mentionedMaximum or estimate mentionedNot mentioned
38 

Claim	Form	Characteristics	

 To examine differences in claims-filing requirements across settlements, we reviewed 

each claim form and, for each, coded: the length of the form; the language used to ask claimants 

to affirm that they are in the class; the degree of personally identifiable information required to 

file a claim; and the difficulty of remembering or obtaining documentation requirements, if 

any.57 This analysis was limited to the 58 cases that provided a claim form to recipients (and for 

which administrators were able to provide us with a copy in response to the FTC order).58

 As seen in Table 6, about half the cases in our sample had claims forms that were one 

page in length, about a third had 2-page claim forms, and the remaining 15% were longer than 

two pages. We also examined the language used by the claim form to ask claimants to certify 

their eligibility to receive a settlement payment. Most claims-requiring cases asked claimants to 

sign a statement affirming that they fell under the class definition described in the notice. A 

common phrase that claim forms used in such statements was under penalty of perjury. We find 

that about half the cases in our sample used this language, while the other half used softer 

language (e.g., to the best of my knowledge) or do not require claimants to sign any such 

statement. 

 We also examined the degree of personally identifiable information (PII) required by the 

claim form. We found that the vast majority of cases (80%) asked for no sensitive PII and, 

instead, only asked for basic contact information such as name and address. In the sample, 7% 

of the cases asked for moderately sensitive information, such as date of birth and last four digits 

of claimant’s social security number. The remaining 14% asked for very sensitive PII, such as 

full social security or bank account information. 

The last set of findings in Table 6 relate to documentation requirements. More than half 

(58%) of cases in the sample asked for “very easy” documentation requirements, which we 

defined as including basic contact information and items that claimants could easily remember or 

look up, such as driver’s license number. Only 5% of cases asked for “very difficult” 

information such as original receipts. While we did not include this statistic in the table, slightly 

more than half (52%) of cases in our sample asked for only basic contact information such as 

name, email address, and mailing address without any further PII or documentation requirements 

(i.e., this is the overlap of cases which asked for “no sensitive PII” and that had “very easy to 

remember/obtain” documentation requirements). 

 

57 We used the same double-coding technique described in footnote 52. 

58 We do not display incidence of claims filing requirements separately across notice type because the vast majority 

of notices that provide claim forms are notice packet cases. 
39 

Table 6: Incidence of Claim Form Characteristics

Claim Form Characteristic Examples

Percentage

of Cases

Length of Claim Form      

1 page    54%

2 pages    31%

Longer than 2 pages    15%         

Requires that claimants sign a statement containing the phrase under penalty of perjury?

Yes      51%

No    49%         

Personally Identifiable Information (PII) Required   

No Sensitive PII Name, Address, Phone Number, Email Address 80%

Moderately Sensitive PII Date of Birth, Driver’s License Number (DLN),

Last 4 Digits of Social Security Number (SSN) 7%

Very Sensitive PII Full SSN, Bank Account Number   14%

        

Claim Documentation Requirements   

Very Easy to Remember/Obtain   Current Address, Current Phone Number, Date of

Birth, SSN, DLN 58%

Moderately Easy to

Remember/Obtain  

Phone Number or Address at the Time of

Allegedly Unlawful Practice 17%

Moderately Difficult to

Remember/Obtain

Locations of Product Purchased, Last 4 Digits of

Credit Card Used to Purchase 20%

Very Difficult to

Remember/Obtain Original Receipts, Notarization 5%
40 

2.7 Regression Analysis		

 

 In section 2.5, we examined the relationship between basic notice characteristics and the 

claims rate by calculating unadjusted weighted means. For example, the weighted mean claims 

rates reported across email, postcard, and notice packet campaigns did not account for other 

characteristics available in the dataset, such as the level of redress provided by the settlement. If 

the direct notice type and level of redress (i.e., the independent variables) were related to each 

other and to the claims rate, controlling for both independent variables in the same framework 

provides insights about the underlying characteristics that are more directly related to the claims 

rate. 

 To account for confounding variables for which the administrators provided data, we 

examined the relationship between the claims rate and each notice characteristic using a 

regression framework, which estimates the strength of the relationship, holding the other 

available independent variables constant. The regression analysis allows us to determine 

whether the noted relationships (or lack thereof) between notice characteristics and claims rates 

hold when adjusting for other factors, while testing for statistical significance in the same 

framework. Table 7 displays these regression coefficient estimates. The regression 

specification includes most notice characteristics as indicator variables, where the missing 

category reflects the baseline—e.g., cases delivering notice via notice packet constitute the 

baseline direct notice type. 

 The reader should interpret the coefficient on each indicator variable as the estimated 

difference in weighted mean claims rate for notice campaigns with the specified characteristic 

compared to the baseline, holding the other variables constant. For the one continuous 

variable—median redress provided by the case—the reader should interpret the coefficient as the 

estimated percentage point increase in the claims rate related to a $1 increase in median redress, 

holding the other variables constant. As noted earlier, because we do not have data on, and 

hence cannot control for, key unobservable characteristics that may be related to our variables of 

interest—such as the degree of injury resulting from the practice and quality of available contact 

information—the reader should not interpret the regression coefficients as causal estimates. 

 For the most part, the coefficient estimates in Table 7 corroborate trends that we noted 

previously.59 For example, holding all else equal, the negative, statistically significant 

coefficient in the first row (-0.0727) signifies that cases with email notice have a 7.3 percentage 

points lower claims rate, in comparison to cases that employ notice packets. Conversely, the 

regression results indicate that, while postcard notice is associated with lower claims rates 

 

59 This similarity suggests that the independent variables are unlikely to be significantly correlated to one another 

and/or to the claims rate.
41 

relative to notice packets, the difference in claims rates between the two notice types is not 

statistically significant. The regression estimation also finds that cases that attempt to reach 

class members twice or more have claims rates that are significantly higher (5.7 percentage 

points higher, on average), than those that provide only one round of notice. Finally, publication 

notice and level of median redress have a negligible relationship with the average claims rates. 

Table 7: Regression Coefficient Estimates of the Relationship Between Notice

Characteristics and Claims Rate

Dependent Variable: Claims Rate

Independent Variables:

Coefficient  

Estimates  

(Standard Error)

Indicator for Email ‐0.0727***

(0.0185)

Indicator for Postcard without Claim Form ‐0.0279

(0.0182)

Indicator for Postcard with Claim Form ‐0.00120

(0.0170)

Indicator for Two or More Rounds of Notice 0.0573***

(0.0217)

Indicator for Publication Notice ‐0.0000728

‐0.0147

Median Redress ‐0.00000815

(0.0000249)

Constant 0.100***

‐0.0192

Observations 100

Notes: Sample consists of cases that require a claims process, which had a calculated claims rate of less 

than 100% and provided data for all variables. Regression is weighted by the number of notice 

recipients and controls for the court (state vs federal), the number of notice recipients, and an indicator 

for using multiple forms of notice. Robust standard errors in parentheses. 

Significance levels: *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1
42 

Notice	Characteristics	

In Table 8, we examine the relationship between the notice characteristics, described in 

section 2.6, and the claims rate in a regression framework.60 According to the results, the only 

notice characteristics that were significantly related to the claims rate are those involving 

payment language. Specifically, notices that included plain English language about payment had 

claims rates that were about 10 percentage points higher on average. While there may be 

unobservable characteristics that are correlated with a notice campaign’s use of plain English 

payment language (so we cannot interpret the regression results causally), our findings do 

provide suggestive evidence that the inclusion of such precise payment language—if the features 

of the settlement allow for it—could substantially increase claims rates. 

	 	

 

60 As before, the reader should interpret the coefficient estimates as the percentage difference in adjusted weighted 

average claims rate for notices having that characteristic compared to the baseline, which is the omitted category. 

For example, the omitted category for the legal information at the top of the notice is “no legal information.” 
43 

Table 8: Regression Coefficient Estimates of the Relationship between Notice

Characteristics and Claims Rate

  Dependent Variable: Claims Rate

Independent Variables:

Coefficient

Estimates

(Standard Error)

Indicator for Legal Caption ‐0.00529

(0.0421)

Indicator for Plaintiff, Case, & Court 0.0103

(0.0413)

Indicator for Court Name Only 0.00804

(0.0502)

Indicator for Table 0.0398

(0.0432)

Indicator for Take Action Language ‐0.0389

(0.0330)

Indicator for Relevant Language 0.00710

(0.0253)

Indicator for Plain English Payment Language 0.105***

(0.0308)

Indicator for Certain Payment Language 0.0380

(0.0398)

Indicator for Plain English and Certain Payment

Language

‐0.0780

(0.0618)

Indicator for Exact or Minimum Payment 0.0722*

(0.0391)

Indicator for Maximum or Estimated Payment 0.0731*

(0.0425)

Constant 0.0710

(0.0523)

Observations 82

Notes: Sample consists of cases that require a claims process, had a calculated claims rate of less than 100%, 

provided data for all variables, and included a copy of the notice in the FTC order production. Regression is 

weighted by the number of notice recipients and controls for all variables listed in Table 7. “Indicator for Take 

Action Language” takes on the value of 1 if either the consequences of doing nothing or the necessity of filing a 

claim are prominently explained. Robust standard errors in parentheses. 

Significance levels: *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1
44 

Claim	Form	Characteristics	

Finally, in Table 9, we use regression analysis to examine the relationship between the claim 

form characteristics and the claims rate. We find that none of these characteristics are 

significantly related to the claims rate.61

Table 9: Regression Coefficient Estimates of the Relationship Between Claim Form

Characteristics and Claims Rate

Dependent Variable:  Claims Rate Coefficient

Estimates

(Standard Error) Independent Variables:

Indicator for Claim Form Length of 2 Pages

  

0.000909

(0.0481)

Indicator for Claim Form Length of >2 Pages

  

‐0.0638

(0.103)

Indicator for Under Penalty of Perjury Language

  

‐0.0282

(0.0321)

Indicator for Moderately Sensitive PII Required

  

‐0.0469

(0.0291)

Indicator for Very Sensitive PII Required

  

‐0.00854

(0.0445)

Indicator for Moderately Easy to Remember/Obtain

                 Documentation Requirements

0.00991

(0.0366)

Indicator for Moderately Difficult to Remember/

                 Obtain Documentation Requirements

0.0199

(0.105)

Indicator for Very Difficult to Remember/Obtain  

                 Documentation Requirements

‐0.273*

(0.142)

Constant

  

0.208***

(0.0265)

Observations 51

Notes: Sample consists of cases that require a claims process, had a calculated claims rate of less than 100%, 

provided data for all variables, and included a copy of the claim form in the FTC order production. Regression is 

weighted by the number of notice recipients and controls for all variables listed in Table 7. Robust standard 

errors in parentheses. Significance levels: *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1.

 

61 More specifically, none were statistically significantly related to the claims rates at p<.05. Given that the 

regression contains 51 observations and 17 covariates, the regression may lack adequate power to detect statistically 

significant differences. Some aspects of documentation requirements had a marginally significant relationship with 

the claims rate. Claim forms that request the most difficult category of documentation—such as original receipts or 

notarizations—had claims rates that were an average of 27.3 percentage points lower (p=.06) than those that ask for 

the easiest information—such as current contact information. Despite this large estimated coefficient, cases that 

have such difficult documentation requirements comprised only 5% of the sample (see the “very difficult to 

remember/obtain” category in Table 6), suggesting that burdensome claims filing requirements were unlikely to be 

the primary factor leading to generally low claim filing rates across our sample of cases. 
45 

Chapter 3:		Notice Study

3.1 Summary		

Introduction	

Staff conducted this study to evaluate whether various emailed class action notice 

characteristics—sender address, subject line phrasing, compensation amount in the subject line, 

email body format, and court seal displayed in the email body—influence respondents’: 

 Stated likelihood of opening a class action settlement email; 

 Comprehension of the type of information contained in the email; 

 Understanding of the class action claims process as communicated by the email; 

 Impressions about the likelihood of compensation from the class action settlement 

described in the email; 

 Impressions of the ease of satisfying requirements to receive compensation through 

the class action settlement described in the email; and 

 Impressions of the time necessary to file a claim for compensation through the class 

action settlement described in the email. 

While class action settlements use a variety of notice methods to reach class members, 

including mailed notice packets, postcards, and email, this consumer study focused exclusively 

on email notice62 for two reasons: first, our interviews with class action administrators indicated 

they are increasingly using email notifications, especially for large, national classes, thus 

suggesting our focus on email will have greater long-term utility; and second, given that our 

study design involved an internet panel and its associated online interface, we determined that 

visuals of emails would better fit into such an interface than those of postcards or notice packet 

mailings.63 

 

62 See Chapter 1 for general information about class action settlements. 

63 We do not intend for our decision to study exclusively emailed class action notice to be interpreted as an 

endorsement of this form of notice. As described in Chapter 2, the evaluation of the most effective type of class 

action notice for consumer claims rates remains an open question. 
46 

Limitations	

The study provides useful insights into factors that affect consumer perceptions of 

emailed class action notices. However, several limitations apply. 

First, the study used a voluntary internet panel, which did not provide a true probability 

sample. Thus, absolute percentages from this study’s findings should not be projected to the 

national population. Nevertheless, as explained in Section 3.2, comparing responses across 

scenarios, rather than interpreting absolute percentages, is likely to be informative. 

Second, the survey platform did not fully replicate an authentic email experience for 

respondents. Specifically, the study displayed static images of a fictitious email environment 

and asked respondents questions related to these images, instructing them to assume they were 

viewing their personal inboxes and email content. This environment may yield responses that do 

not completely capture real-life consumer experiences with email. For example, the study’s 

responses are unlikely to reflect fully consumer hesitation to open email that they find 

untrustworthy. Additionally, consumers may interact with email differently if they recognize the 

company involved in the class action notice, a proclivity we are unable to account for entirely in 

this study. Even so, because our conclusions stem from comparisons across scenarios, and 

because these real-world behaviors are unlikely to affect some scenarios differently than others, 

differences across scenarios still provide valuable insights into how variations in email 

components influence consumer perception of class action notices. 

Conclusions	

The study’s findings indicate that certain widely-used characteristics of emailed class 

action notices—such as legal phrasing of subject lines, omission of the available amount of 

compensation in the subject line, and long email formats—perform better than others on some, 

but not all dimensions. In particular, these long-established practices appear to effectively 

convey to respondents the type of information contained in the email. On the other hand, the 

study’s results suggest that emailed notice campaigns could improve current practices with 

respect to other outcomes. For instance, the study suggests that rewording subject lines to 

remove reference to a class action settlement may improve opening rates. In addition, 

streamlining the instructions for filing a claim may improve consumer understanding of the 

claims process. However, the study also shows that respondents were more suspicious of 

bulleted lists than of long format text in emails, suggesting that notice campaigns need to pay 
47 

careful attention to conveying the legitimacy of the class action settlement claim process in the 

emails with streamlined instructions.64

3.2 Study Methodology

Overview		

We examined whether consumer perception of a class action settlement notice differs 

across various inbox and email conditions by randomly assigning respondents to treatment 

groups and comparing their responses across conditions. In doing so, we divided the study into 

two parts. The first part examined various inbox characteristics (such as the sender address and 

the subject line), and the second part examined various email body characteristics (such as the 

format of the notice and the display of a court seal in the email). The study randomly assigned 

each respondent to one of 108 sender, subject line, and email body cells. Each respondent 

viewed only one inbox (consisting of a sender and subject line combination) and one email body 

(consisting of a court seal and email format combination). Each respondent answered the same 

set of questions related to their likelihood of opening the email, their comprehension of the 

content of the notice, their understanding of the steps required to receive a settlement payment, 

and their perceptions of the claims and refund process.65 Section 3.3 provides further details on 

the two-part study design. 

Sampling	Frame	

We contracted with Great Lakes Marketing Research, a consumer research firm, to 

administer the study using an internet panel with nationwide coverage. To recruit participants, 

Great Lakes contracted with a provider of an internet panel consisting of approximately 6 million 

individuals drawn from throughout the country, derived from a series of convenience sampling 

procedures, rather than true probability sampling. 

To be eligible for participation in the study, respondents had to be actively enrolled in the 

internet panel and be 18 years of age or older. The panel recruited respondents so the sample 

 

64 Despite these specific observations, the study does not yield definitive conclusions about ways to consistently 

improve consumer perception of emailed class action notices. 

65 More specifically, each respondent was presented with the same survey instrument, including skip patterns, 

regardless of his or her randomly-assigned treatment group. 
48 

would be representative of those who use the internet and email.66 Respondents who completed 

the study received an average of $2.20 as an incentive payment. 

Great Lakes fielded the study in January 2018.67 We used a sample of 8,000 respondents 

based on the number of inbox and email body cells into which we divided the sample and a 

power analysis. To obtain a final sample of 8,000 completed responses, Great Lakes sent a total 

of 14,884 email invitations to panelists. Thus, the completed response rate was 53.7%. To 

ensure consistency in the images presented to each participant, respondents had to take the 

survey on a desktop, laptop, or tablet (i.e., we did not allow the use of mobile phones). 

The study results are not projectable to the general population because the internet panel 

was assembled through a series of convenience sampling procedures, which did not yield a 

nationally representative probability sample. Accordingly, the study focuses on comparing 

respondent interpretations across various inbox and email body scenarios to determine if

consumer perception of the class action settlement notice studied is sensitive to differences in the 

scenario presented. We do not seek to project our quantitative findings to the percentage of the 

population at large that holds a particular view. Nevertheless, our findings based on comparing 

results across scenarios provide useful insights into email attributes that influence consumer 

understanding and willingness to engage with class action notices. 

3.3 Study Design		

The conduct we studied—consumer interaction with email—inherently involves a twostep process: individuals first see a list of email senders and subject lines in their inboxes and 

then choose to open and view specific emails. The study simulated this process as closely as 

possible using a two-part, static design. For both parts of the study, respondents viewed static 

images of an email platform and were asked them a series of closed-ended and open-ended 

questions. To mitigate biases from previous experiences with actual companies, we developed a 

fictitious class action case.68 

 

66 See Appendix Table G.1 for a comparison of the demographics of the study sample with that of the U.S. 

population. 

67 Prior to fielding the study, we conducted a pretest with 100 respondents to ensure that respondents easily 

understood the questions and that the online procedure was sufficient to generate reliable data. The pretest 

questionnaire included additional open-ended questions asking respondents to report any confusion or difficulties 

they experienced when answering the questions. Based on our review of these comments, we concluded that the 

questionnaire wording and design were clear and that additional changes were not necessary. 

68 We selected Sonoro Technologies, Inc. as the name of the defendant company, Jet as the name of the product, 

Lavin as the name of the plaintiff involved in the class action lawsuit, and $100 as the amount of compensation 

available through the settlement. 
49 

Conceptual	Framework	

	 	

To successfully file a claim, the class action notice recipient must follow a series of steps 

that likely include the following: 

1) The notice reaches the recipient.

2) The recipient opens the notice.

3) The recipient understands that the notice contains information about a refund.

4) The recipient understands that they have to file a claim to receive the refund. 

5) The recipient values the expected payoff from filing a claim over the expected costs 

of filing a claim. 

The Notice Study examines whether alternative sender names, subject lines, and email 

formats are more effective than others in completing the steps listed above.69 The study includes 

a series of questions that directly measure several aspects of this process, for example, by asking 

about respondents’ likelihoods of opening the class action email and asking them to rate 

statements about the nature of the email, as well as any actions they may need to take to receive a 

refund through the class action settlement. As described in more detail below, the study holds 

the expected payoff of filing a claim constant across email conditions ($100). In doing so, the 

study is able to gauge if alternative email formats—for example, by using a bulleted list to 

describe the claims process— affect respondents’ assessments of the “costs” of filing a claim. 

Specifically, the study includes questions that measure how burdensome the process is, for 

example, by asking respondents to gauge the difficulty of meeting refund requirements and to 

estimate how long it will take to complete the process to apply for the refund. 

	 	

Part	I:		Inbox		

Part I Overview: We designed the first (“inbox”) part of the study to examine whether 

various inbox characteristics influence: (1) respondents’ stated likelihoods of opening the 

studied class action settlement notice email; and (2) their perceptions of the type of information 

contained in the email. 

Part I Visual Displays and Overview of Question Sequence: In Part I of study, we 

presented respondents with a static image of an inbox and asked them to assume it was their 

personal inbox containing emails from companies with whom they had done business. The 

 

69 Because of the static, simulated interface of the study, we did not examine the first step, success of delivery. 
50 

inbox contained a total of 10 inbox entries, one of which was a class action settlement notice 

email about the fictitious company Sonoro Technologies. The nine other inbox entries also 

concerned fictitious companies and had various subject lines, such as subjects regarding 

promotions or order confirmations. The study randomly assigned the position of the class action 

email to mitigate bias resulting from the email’s location: for approximately half of the 

participants, it appeared in the third position, and for the other respondents, it appeared in the 

eighth position. While viewing the image of the inbox, respondents were asked to select the 

emails, if any, they would be likely to open. Next, while viewing the image of the class action 

email inbox entry in isolation, respondents were asked to rate a series of statements about the 

nature of the email on a true-false scale.70 

Part I Scenarios: The inbox part of the study tested 18 sender address / subject line 

scenarios. Specifically, it tested three sender addresses (Sonoro, SonoroJetSettlement, and 

classaction@uscourts.gov) across three subject line prefixes (Notice of Class Action Settlement, 

Notice of Refund, and Lavin v. Sonoro Technologies Class Action Settlement) and two subject 

line refund information conditions (presence or absence of the potential refund amount of 

$100).71

Part	II:		Email	Body	

Part II Overview: We designed the second (“email body”) part of the study to examine 

whether various characteristics influence: (1) respondents’ comprehension of the information 

contained in the studied class action settlement notice; (2) their understanding of the steps 

required to receive a refund; and (3) their perceptions of the claims and refund process. 

Part II Visual Displays and Overview of Question Sequence: This portion of the study 

began by instructing respondents to assume that they had opened the class action settlement 

notice email. Next, the study presented respondents with a static image of an email body, 

depicting a class action settlement notice. We blurred the sender and subject line so that these 

components of the email did not drive responses. After viewing the image of the email body, 

 

70 Appendix D contains the full questionnaire for the study. 

71 Appendix E contains example screenshots of the stimuli presented in Part I of the study. We selected these 

example screenshots so that all sender names and subject lines are represented. This allows the reader to recreate all 

18 sender address/subject line scenarios. Half of the example screenshots list the class action email on the third line, 

and half list it on the eighth. The reader should bear in mind that this position was randomized for each of the 18 

scenarios, meaning that approximately half of respondents viewed the email in the third position and half viewed it 

in the eight position for each scenario. 
51 

respondents answered a series of questions about the nature of the email.72 Next, regardless of 

their answers to this set of questions, respondents were explicitly told that the email they had just 

viewed included information on a class action settlement, including information about a refund, 

and were presented with the same email body image for a second time. Then, respondents were 

asked what actions they might need to take to receive the refund. Respondents who indicated 

that one must fill out a claims form to receive the refund were then asked about their personal 

opinions of the claims and refund process according to the email they viewed. 

Part II Scenarios: We tested six scenarios in this part of the study. Specifically, we 

presented respondents with three email formats across two court seal conditions. The three email 

body formats were: (1) a typical emailed class action settlement notice derived from notices in 

various nationwide class action settlements (the “long” version); (2) a condensed settlement 

notice (the “condensed” version) that we developed and that complies with Rule 23; and (3) a 

further streamlined settlement notice (the “experimental” version), which was not consistent with 

Rule 23’s current requirements. The two court seal conditions were: (1) the presence of the seal, 

and (2) the absence of the seal. When presented, the court seal was outlined in blue and was 

displayed in combination with the text “This is a LEGAL NOTICE approved by the UNITED 

STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA” along with 

the fictitious case name and docket number.73 

 

 

72 We removed the image of the email body from the respondent’s view when he or she was answering questions. 

73 Appendix F contains example screenshots of the stimuli presented in Part II of the study. We selected these 

example screenshots so that all email formats and court-seal conditions are represented. This allows the reader to 

recreate all 6 email format/court seal scenarios. 
52 

3.5 Results

Part	I:	Inbox	Results		

 In Part I of the study, respondents answered two sets of closed-ended questions and one 

open-ended question about the inbox. We base the analysis on the closed-ended questions, 

which we supplement with a text-mining analysis of the open-ended responses. 

Questions	Posed	to	Respondents	

 In the first closed-ended question, Q1, respondents were asked to select the emails, if any, 

that they would be likely to open from the image of the inbox screen. In the discussion below, 

we refer to the percentage of respondents who indicated they would likely open the class action 

email as the stated opening rate. 

 In the closed-ended question series, Q3a through Q3d, respondents were shown 

statements related to the class action email, and they were asked to rate the statements on a scale 

from definitely true to definitely false.74 These questions included two correct statements about 

the email: 1) it provided information on a class action settlement (Q3b); and provided 

information on getting a refund (Q3d). The series also included two incorrect statements about 

the email: it was an advertisement (Q3a), and it provided shipping confirmation of an online 

order (Q3c). We aggregated responses to the question 3 series into a comprehension rate to 

measure whether a respondent indicated that one or both of the correct statements (Q3b and Q3d) 

were “probably true” or “definitely true” and whether the two incorrect statements (Q3a and 

Q3c) were “probably false” or “definitely false”. In other words, we concluded that a respondent 

comprehended the information if they understood the email was about a class action or a refund, 

and that the email was not an advertisement and did not provide shipping confirmation. 

 In the open-ended question, Q2, respondents were asked to describe why they were likely 

or unlikely to open the Notice in Q1. 

 

74 Specifically, when answering questions Q3a through Q3d, respondents viewed the inbox entry for the class action 

settlement in isolation, with the rest of the email entries cropped out. We randomized the order in which 

respondents answered this series of questions. We also provided a “don’t know” option for this series to minimize 

bias resulting from random guessing. 
53 

Impact	of	Sender	Information	on	Opening	and	Comprehension	Rates

 Figure 1 summarizes the closed-ended results for Part I of the study, separately by the 

sender name displayed in the inbox scenario.75 As detailed below, respondents viewing an inbox 

scenario with the sender classaction@uscourts.gov had slightly higher stated opening and 

comprehension rates than those viewing other scenarios.76 

 Stated Opening Rates by Sender: As seen in Figure 1.A, regardless of the sender name, 

fewer than half of respondents said they were likely to open the class action settlement email. 

Respondents who viewed the inbox scenario where the sender of the class action notice was 

classaction@uscourts.gov said that they would be likely to open the email 41% of the time, the 

highest stated opening rate across all three senders, but not by a large margin. Specifically, the 

classaction@uscourts.gov stated opening rate was 4 and 6 percentage points higher than the 

stated opening rates for respondents who viewed the inbox entry with the senders Sonoro and 

SonoroJetSettlement, respectively. 77 

 Comprehension Rates by Sender: Based on the comprehension rates displayed in Figure 

1.A, sender name minimally influenced respondent understanding of the nature of the email. 

Specifically, the results indicate that comprehension rates for all three sender conditions fell 

within only 2 to 3 percentage points of each other. Overall, a relatively low portion of 

respondents (less than half) correctly understood the nature of the email. Respondents viewing 

the inbox scenario with sender classaction@uscourts.gov had the highest comprehension rate 

(40%).

78 

 We also examined the individual components of the comprehension rate (i.e., responses 

to Q3a through Q3d) and found that there are some key differences across sender conditions. As 

illustrated in Figure 1.B., 65% of respondents viewing classaction@uscourts.gov understood that 

the email provided information about a class action settlement, representing a 13 percentage 

point increase over respondents who understood this in the Sonoro sender condition (52%). In 

 

75 We analyze main effects (such as the sender, refund information condition, and subject line) by collapsing across 

levels of the other variables. For example, to calculate stated opening rates for a specific sender (i.e., not accounting 

for subject line), we average stated opening rates for that sender across all six subject line conditions. 

76 See Appendix Table G.2 for 95% confidence intervals and results of joint significance testing across the three 

sender scenarios. 

77 We conduct all statistical significance testing at p<.05 using a two-tailed t-test. All differences cited throughout 

the discussion are statistically significant unless otherwise stated. 

78 Throughout this chapter, we simplify the exposition by referring to responses of “definitely true” or “probably 

true” to a given statement as respondents saying, or otherwise indicating the content of the statement to be true. 
54 

addition, we find that nearly half of respondents (44% to 47%) incorrectly believe the email is an 

advertisement, while a much smaller percentage of respondents (13% to 14%) incorrectly believe 

it is a shipping confirmation for an online order. When adjusting for this tendency to identify 

false statements as correct, we find that differences across sender scenarios in understanding 

were minimal, as reflected in the overall comprehension rate results described above. The 

analysis of the individual components of respondent comprehension also suggests that the 

relatively low overall comprehension rate is driven in part by respondents’ belief that the email is 

promotional. 
55 

Figure 1:		Inbox Results, by Sender

A:		Stated Opening and Comprehension Rates

B:		Components of Comprehension Rate		

Percentage of Respondents Answering “Definitely True” or “Probably True”

Sonoro SonoroJetSettlement

classaction@

uscourts.gov

Correct Statements

Q3b: This e‐mail provides information on a

class action settlement. 52% 60% 65%

Q3d: This e‐mail provides information on

getting a refund. 50% 49% 50%

Incorrect Statements

Q3a: This e‐mail is an advertisement. 47% 47% 44%

Q3c: This e‐mail provides shipping

confirmation of an online order. 14% 13% 13%

 

37%

38%

35%

37%

41%

40%

Stated Opening Rate

Comprehension Rate

Sonoro

SonoroJetSettlement

classaction@uscourts.gov
56 

Impact	of	Refund	Amount	in	Subject	Line	on	Opening	and	

Comprehension	Rates	

Subject lines that contain the specific amount of the refund (i.e., “$100”) performed 

slightly worse than those without the amount of the refund in terms of stated opening rates, and 

performed considerably worse in terms of comprehension rates. We summarize these results in 

Figure 2 and provide more detail below. 

Stated Opening Rates by Refund Amount in Subject Line: Respondents’ answers 

indicated they were more likely to open the class action email if it did not have a specific refund 

amount in the subject line. Of the respondents who viewed an inbox scenario that omitted the 

refund amount in the subject line of the class action email, 40% said that they would open the 

class action email. Conversely, 36% of those viewing an inbox scenario where the class action 

email subject line informed respondents of the $100 refund amount said that they would open it 

(see Figure 2.A).79 

Comprehension Rates by Refund Amount in Subject Line: Respondents’ answers indicate 

that they were much less likely to understand the nature of the class action email when the 

specific refund amount ($100) appeared in the subject line. In particular, 32% of respondents 

who viewed a class action inbox entry containing $100 in the subject line correctly understood 

the type of information contained in the email compared to 44% who viewed a class action inbox 

entry that did not include the $100 amount, as seen in Figure 2.A. That is, including the refund 

amount decreased the comprehension rate by 12 percentage points. 

As seen in Figure 2.B, the refund amount information had a large impact on whether 

respondents believed the email was an advertisement. Figure 2.B displays the results for each 

question of the Q3 series, which we used to compute the comprehension rate based on refund 

information. Indeed, 52% of respondents viewing an inbox scenario with the refund amount 

thought it was an advertisement (an incorrect response), 12 percentage points higher than the 

percentage of respondents who thought the same when viewing the inbox entry without the 

refund amount (40%). In comparison, when looking at responses to the correct statements (Q3b 

and Q3d), the presence of the refund amount in the subject line only modestly reduced (by 6 

percentage points) understanding that the email concerned a class action settlement and 

substantially increased (by 10 percentage points) respondent understanding that it provided 

 

79 The subject lines that omitted the refund amount are: Lavin v. Sonoro Technologies Class Action Settlement, 

Notice of Class Action Settlement, and Notice of Refund. The subject lines that included the refund amount are: 

Lavin v. Sonoro Technologies Class Action Settlement - $100 refund available, Notice of Class Action Settlement- 

$100 refund available, and Notice of Refund - $100 Available. All differences cited throughout the discussion are 

statistically significant at p<.05 using a two-tailed t-test, unless otherwise stated. 
57 

information on a refund. This strongly suggests that respondents who viewed the subject lines 

containing the refund amount had decreased overall comprehension primarily because many 

believed the email to contain promotional material. 
58 

Figure 2:		Inbox Results, by Refund Amount Information in the Subject Line

A:		Stated Opening and Comprehension Rates

B:		Components of Comprehension Rate

Percentage of Respondents Answering “Definitely True” or “Probably True”

No Refund Amount in

Subject Line

$100 Refund Listed in

Subject Line

Correct Statements

Q3b: This e‐mail provides information on a

class action settlement.

62% 56%

Q3d: This e‐mail provides information on

getting a refund.

45% 55%

Incorrect Statements

Q3a: This e‐mail is an advertisement. 40% 52%

Q3c: This e‐mail provides shipping

confirmation of an online order.

14% 13%

40%

44%

36%

32%

Stated Opening Rate

Comprehension Rate

No Refund Amount in

Subject Line

$100 Refund Listed in

Subject Line
59 

Impact	of	Subject	Line	on	Opening	and	Comprehension	Rates	

Figure 3 summarizes the stated opening rates and comprehension rates, separately for 

each of the six subject lines.80 Overall, the subject line Notice of Refund had substantially higher 

stated opening rates than other subject lines. When considering comprehension rates, however, 

the longer subject lines without the refund amount (Lavin v. Sonoro Technologies Class Action 

Settlement and Notice of Class Action Settlement) performed better than Notice of Refund. These 

findings imply that, when selecting subject lines for emailed class action settlement notices, there 

is likely to be a tradeoff between improving opening rates and improving consumer 

understanding. 

Stated Opening Rates by Subject Line: As seen in Figure 3.A, stated opening rates 

differed across subject line conditions, with Notice of Refund (with no specific amount stated) 

clearly outperforming the other five conditions. Specifically, 52% of respondents who viewed 

the inbox scenario where the relevant email had this subject line said that they would open this 

email. This is the only subject line condition in which the majority of respondents selected the 

relevant class action email to open, and it represents a substantial increase (11 to 27 percentage 

points) over the other subject lines.81 The subject lines containing the name of the plaintiff 

performed the worst: only 26% to 27% of respondents said that they would open the emails that 

contain the legal language Lavin v. Sonoro Technologies Class Action Settlement (with or 

without the refund amount). 

Comprehension Rates by Subject Line: The subject lines Lavin v. Sonoro Technologies 

Class Action Settlement and Notice of Class Action Settlement were the most effective in 

conveying the nature of the email—45% to 48% of respondents correctly understood it. 

Consistent with the findings described previously, subject lines containing the refund amount 

performed worse than their counterparts that did not contain this information. While overall 

comprehension rates are quite low—less than half of respondents understood the nature of the 

email correctly—the Notice of Refund - $100 Available condition performed particularly poorly, 

with only 28% of respondents having the correct understanding. 

Figure 3.B displays responses to the individual questions comprising the aggregate 

comprehension rate measure. The most striking difference across subject lines relates to 

respondents’ understanding that the email provided information on a class action settlement. The 

vast majority of respondents viewing the Lavin v. Sonoro Technologies Class Action Settlement

 

80 See Appendix Table G.3 for 95% confidence intervals and results of joint significance testing across the six 

subject line scenarios. 

81 All differences cited throughout the discussion are statistically significant at p<.05 using a two-tailed t-test, unless 

otherwise stated. 
60 

and Notice of Class Action Settlement subject lines selected a correct answer choice indicating 

that the email concerned a class action settlement (78% and 72%, respectively). The percentage 

of respondents in the Notice of Refund condition who understood this fact was only 36%. Given 

the phrasing of the various subject lines, these results are not particularly surprising. For 

instance, the subject line Notice of Refund does not explicitly say anything about a class action 

settlement.82 

 

82 To put these results in context, readers should note that one-third of the respondents who viewed the Notice of 

Refund subject line viewed it with the sender classaction@uscourts.gov, and an additional one-third viewed it with 

the sender SonoroJetSettlement, both of which one might expect to convey class action settlement information. The 

remaining third viewed Notice of Refund with the sender Sonoro, a combination which does not convey information 

about the class action nature of the email. 
61 

Figure 3:		Inbox Results, by Subject Line

A:		Stated Opening and Comprehension Rates

B:		Components of Comprehension Rate

Percentage of Respondents Answering “Definitely True” or “Probably True” Lavin v. Sonoro Technologies Class Action Settlement Lavin v. Sonoro Technologies Class Action Settlement‐$100 refund available Notice of Class Action Settlement Notice of Class Action Settlement‐ $100 Refund Available

Notice of RefundNotice of Refund ‐ $100Available

Correct Statements

Q3b: This e‐mail provides

information on a class action

settlement.

78% 66% 72% 63% 36% 38%

Q3d: This e‐mail provides

information on getting a refund. 37% 54% 35% 55% 63% 55%

Incorrect Statements

Q3a: This e‐mail is an

advertisement.

40% 50% 42% 52% 37% 54%

Q3c: This e‐mail provides shipping

confirmation of an online order. 12% 13% 13% 11% 17% 15%

27%

48%

26%

35%

39%

45%

39%

34%

53%

40%

42%

28%

Stated Opening Rate

Comprehension Rate

Lavin v. Sonoro Technologies Class Action

Settlement

Lavin v. Sonoro Technologies Class Action

Settlement ‐ $100 refund available

Notice of Class Action Settlement

Notice of Class Action Settlement‐ $100

refund available

Notice of Refund

Notice of Refund ‐ $100 Available
62 

Sender‐	Subject	Line		

Figure 4 displays the stated opening and comprehension rates for each of the 18 sendersubject line combinations. In general, we found that the results line up with the main effects 

analysis presented earlier; that is, sender name appeared to have a similar effect regardless of the 

subject line, and subject line appeared to have a similar effect regardless of the sender.83 

The highest percentage of respondents said they would open the email with Notice of 

Refund subject line (52% to 54%). Within this subject line scenario, there were no statistically 

significant differences based on sender name—i.e., for emails with this subject line, sender name 

does not appear to have an additional impact on opening rates. 

Respondents viewing the subject line Lavin v. Sonoro Technologies Class Action 

Settlement had the highest comprehension rate (as high as 49%), and, again, there were no 

statistically significant differences in comprehension across sender names within this condition. 

Furthermore, Notice of Class Action Settlement, when displayed with sender names Sonoro and 

classaction@uscourts.gov, performed just as well as Lavin v. Sonoro Technologies Class Action 

Settlement, based on statistical significance testing. 

	 	

 

83 In a respondent-level regression, where the outcome is an indicator for selecting the class action settlement email 

to open, on dependent variables consisting of indicators for each sender, each subject line, and sender-subject line 

interactions, we found none of the interaction effect coefficients to be statistically significant at p<.05. In a similar 

regression where the outcome is an indicator for comprehending the nature of the email (as defined in the text), we 

found two of the interaction-effects to be statistically significant at p<.05. 
63 

Figure 4:		Inbox Results, by Sender‐Subject Line

Sender Stated Opening Rated Comprehension Rate

Lavin v. Sonoro Technologies Class Action Settlement

Sonoro 27% 49% ^

SonoroJetSettlement 23% 46% ^

classaction@uscourts.gov 32% 49% ^

Lavin v. Sonoro Technologies Class Action Settlement ‐ $100 refund available

Sonoro 25% 35%

SonoroJetSettlement 25% 33%

classaction@uscourts.gov 29% 38%

Notice of Class Action Settlement

Sonoro 39% 48% ^

SonoroJetSettlement 33% 42%

classaction@uscourts.gov 45% 45% ^

Notice of Class Action Settlement ‐ $100 refund available

Sonoro 38% 33%

SonoroJetSettlement 37% 34%

classaction@uscourts.gov 42% 34%

Notice of Refund

Sonoro 54% ^ 42%

SonoroJetSettlement 52% ^ 41%

classaction@uscourts.gov 53% ^ 38%

Notice of Refund ‐ $100 Available

Sonoro 42% 20%

SonoroJetSettlement 38% 27%

classaction@uscourts.gov 46% 36%

Notes: ^ denotes maximum percentages (i.e., the highest stated opening and comprehension rates) within each 

column and percentages that are not statistically different from this maximum, using a two-tailed t-test at p<.05. See

Appendix Table G.5. Subject lines are displayed in bold text. 
64 

Analysis	of	Open‐Ended	Responses,	Inbox	Results	

 At the end of the inbox part of the study (Q2), the study asked respondents why they said 

they would open or not open the class action settlement email. 

 Using text processing software, we first tabulated the most frequently-occurring 

substantive words, separately for respondents who said they were likely to open the email and 

respondents who said they were not.84 These results appear in the word clouds in Figure 5. 

Respondents who said they would likely open the email tended to mention words related to the 

potential compensation available through the settlement (for example, “refund” is the most 

commonly occurring substantive word for this set of respondents). Respondents who said that 

they would not likely open the email often mentioned words that indicate mistrust. For this 

group of respondents, “spam” is the most frequently-occurring word.85 

Figure 5:		Word Clouds for Most Frequently‐Occurring Terms in Q2:

Why do you say that you are likely to open /not likely to open this e‐mail?

Sample:	38%	of	respondents	who	selected	

email	as	one	they	would be likely to open		

	 Sample:	62%	of	respondents	who	selected	

email	as	one	they	would not be likely to open		

 

84 We cleaned the text of open-ended responses before tabulating the most frequently occurring words by removing 

“stopwords” (words such as “and,” “the,” and “that,” which primarily serve a grammatical purpose), re-coding 

various iterations of a word to the same word (e.g., re-coding “emails” to “email”), removing numeric and special 

characters, and combining the phrases “class action” and “don’t know” into a single entity to enhance the visual 

analysis. 

85 See Appendix Tables G.6 and G.7 for sample verbatim responses. 
65 

 Open-Ended Analysis of Compensation-Related Words: In Figure 6, we examine the 

percentage of responses across subject-line scenarios that mentioned compensation-related words 

when asked why they would open the email. 86 

 As indicated in Figure 6.A, we found that the appearance of the refund amount in the 

subject line increased respondents’ tendency to mention compensation-related words by 4 

percentage points, from 17% to 21%.87 Figure 6.B summarizes the compensation-related openended findings across the six specific subject lines. We found that, of the respondents viewing 

subject lines Lavin v. Sonoro Technologies Class Action Settlement and Notice of Class Action 

Settlement, few said that they would open the email because of the settlement compensation (4% 

and 8%, respectively). The addition of the refund amount in these subject lines increased the 

percentage of respondents mentioning compensation-related words by 11 to 12 percentage points 

(to 15% and 20% respectively). Respondents who viewed Notice of Refund mentioned 

compensation or similar words at the highest rate across all six subject lines (40%). 

Interestingly, the display of the specific refund amount ($100) for the pair of subject lines 

beginning with the phrase Notice of Refund decreased respondents’ tendency to mention 

compensation-related words by 11 percentage points (from 40% for those viewing Notice of 

Refund, to 29% for those viewing Notice of Refund- $100 Available). 

 

86 Specifically, we calculated percentages as to the number of respondents who selected the class action email as 

one they would be likely to open and whose response to Q2 included at least one word related to the settlement 

compensation (as defined below), divided by the number of respondents who viewed a given scenario. We limited 

the analysis to subject line scenarios, and did not present the results separately by sender, to simplify the 

presentation of results. After consulting the tabulations of the most frequently-occurring words, we determined that 

the words “money,” “refund,” “payment,” “compensation,” “check,” “dollar(s),” “monetary,” and “paid” are 

common words that respondents use to describe settlement compensation. We also included “hundred,” “100,” and 

“$” as compensation-related responses to account for respondents who viewed and mentioned the specific amount of 

the refund, as well as respondents who used numeric or special characters to describe the payment. 

87 All differences cited throughout the discussion are statistically significant at p<.05 using a two-tailed t-test, unless 

otherwise stated. 
66 

Figure 6:		Percentage of Respondents Mentioning Compensation‐Related Words in

Response to:		“Why do you say that you are likely to open this e‐mail? (Q2)”

A:		By Refund Amount Information in Subject Line

B:		By Subject Line

17%

21%

No Refund Amount in Subject Line

$100 Refund Listed in Subject Line

4%

15%

8%

20%

40%

29%

Lavin v. Sonoro Technologies Class Action

Settlement

Lavin v. Sonoro Technologies Class Action

Settlement ‐ $100 refund available

Notice of Class Action Settlement

Notice of Class Action Settlement‐ $100

refund available

Notice of Refund

Notice of Refund ‐ $100 Available
67 

 Open-Ended Analysis of Mistrust-Related Words: Figure 7 displays open-ended 

responses related to mistrust. In particular, we investigate whether there are differences across 

subject-lines in the percentages of respondents who said that they would not open the email 

because they are suspicious of the email.88 

 Figure 7.A shows that the appearance of the specific refund amount ($100) in the subject 

line increased respondents’ mention of mistrust-related words: 34% of those viewing a subject 

line with $100 displayed mentioned words like “scam,” “spam,” etc. when asked why they were 

not likely to open the class action email, compared to 23% of those viewing a subject line 

without the refund amount. This difference of 11 percentage points is nearly three times as high 

as the difference in the percentage of respondents mentioning compensation, as displayed in 

Figure 6.A. 

 Across the six subject line conditions (Figure 7.B), the lowest percentage of mistrustrelated mentions was among the group who saw the Notice of Refund subject line, which, at 

19%, measures 4 to 17 percentage points lower than other scenarios. 

	 	

 

88 Specifically, we calculated percentages as the number of respondents who selected the class action email as one 

they would be not be likely to open and whose response to Q2 included at least one word related to mistrust (as 

defined below), divided by the number of respondents who viewed a given scenario. A review of the tabulations 

described earlier indicated that respondents described mistrust by mentioning the following words: “scam(s),” 

“spam,” “virus,” “phishing,” “junk,” “fake,” “suspicious,” “afraid,” “legitimate,” “fraudulent,” “suspect,” 

“malware,” “unsolicited,” “fishy,” “gimmick,” “sketchy,” and “bogus.” 
68 

Figure 7:		Percentage of Respondents Mentioning Mistrust‐Related Words in

Response to:		“Why do you say that you are not likely to open this e‐mail? (Q2)”

A:		By Refund Amount Information in Subject Line

B:		By Subject Line

23%

34%

No Refund Amount in Subject Line

$100 Refund Listed in Subject Line

23%

34%

26%

36%

19%

31%

Lavin v. Sonoro Technologies Class Action

Settlement

Lavin v. Sonoro Technologies Class Action

Settlement ‐ $100 refund available

Notice of Class Action Settlement

Notice of Class Action Settlement‐ $100

refund available

Notice of Refund

Notice of Refund ‐ $100 Available
69 

Part	II:	Email	Body	Results		

 Part II of the study contained comprehension and opinion questions about the email itself. 

As explained above, the three email formats were: (1) a typical emailed class action settlement 

notice (the “long” version); (2) a condensed settlement notice (the “condensed” version); and (3) 

a further streamlined settlement notice (the “experimental” version). We presented each format 

with and without a court seal. Again, we focused the formal analysis on the closed-ended 

responses and supplemented it with an analysis of open-ended responses. 

	Questions	Posed	to	Respondents	

 We used two sets of closed-ended comprehension questions. First, after viewing the 

email body once, respondents answered a series of questions about the nature of the email (Q5a 

through Q5d).89 As with questions posed earlier about the nature of the email appearing in the 

inbox (i.e., the Q3 series), in this series, respondents were asked to rate statements about the 

nature of the email (e.g., the email provides information about a shipping order, etc.). We 

presented it in a random order, on a scale of “definitely true” to “definitely false.” However, 

unlike the earlier inbox questions, in these questions (i.e., the Q5 series), respondents were asked 

to consider the email they had just read (rather than the inbox), and respondents did not view the 

image of the email while answering the Q5 series. We calculated the comprehension rate for the 

email body portion of the study in the same way as we did for the inbox portion of the study, 

using responses to the Q5 series rather than the Q3 series. 

 Next, after viewing a brief statement about the nature of the email and then viewing the 

email a second time, respondents answered a series of questions asking them to rate various 

statements - on a scale of “definitely true” to “definitely false” - about the actions necessary to 

receive a refund based on their understanding of the email. These statements, which appeared 

randomly in Q7a through Q7d, contained one correct statement (Q7c: that one must fill out a 

claim form) and three incorrect statements (Q7a: that no further action is required; Q7b: that one 

must file a customer service complaint; and Q7d: that one should have a personal attorney for 

court representation). We combined responses to the Q7 series into an aggregate measure called 

correct understanding of next steps, a condition respondents met if they answered “probably 

true” or “definitely true” to the correct statement (Q7c) and selected answers other than 

“probably true” or “definitely true” to all three of the incorrect statements (Q7a, Q7b, and Q7d). 

 

89 As noted in Section 3.3, respondents were instructed to assume that they had opened the email referred to in Part I 

of the study before advancing to the screen that displayed the email body. 
70 

 Respondents who correctly answered that a claim form would have to be submitted to 

receive a refund (i.e., answered probably of definitely true to Q7c) —were then asked a series of 

closed-ended personal opinion questions related to the likelihood of receiving a refund (Q9) and 

the ease of the claims process (Q10 series). 

 We also asked respondents three open-ended questions to supplement their closed-ended 

responses. Specifically, in Q4, we asked respondents to explain why they received the email; in 

Q6, we asked respondents the action or actions, if any, they would need to receive a refund; and 

in Q8, we asked respondents who did not think they would be likely to receive a refund why. 

	 	
71 

Impact	of	Court	Seal	

 In general, the presence of the court seal in the email body had only a slight impact on 

respondents’ answers to the various questions. Specifically, the seal’s presence slightly 

improved understanding of the nature of the email and the refund process, as well as perceptions 

of the likelihood of receiving a refund. Figures 8 displays results for the email body part of the 

study, separately by whether the email displayed the court seal.90

 Comprehension Rates by Court Seal: The court seal improved comprehension rates by 3 

percentage points, from 48% to 51% (Figure 8.A).91 As indicated in Figure 8.B, the respondents 

who viewed an email with the court seal said that the email was an advertisement at a lower rate 

and said that it provided information about a class action settlement at a slightly higher rate (2 to 

3 percentage points), compared to those who did not see view the seal. 

 Understanding of Next Steps by Court Seal: Respondents who viewed emails with the 

court seal were more likely to understand the next steps (42% for respondents who viewed the 

seal and 39% for those who did not). However, the presence of the court seals did not impact 

whether respondents understood that a claim form was necessary to receive compensation 

(Figure 8.C.). In fact, under both seal conditions, about 80% of the respondents understood this 

to be the case. However, many (about 60% under both conditions) also incorrectly thought that 

either no action, a customer service complaint, or personal attorney representation was required, 

driving down the aggregate measure of understanding of next steps from Figure 8.A. 

 Impression of Refund and Claims Process by Court Seal: Based on the closed-ended 

personal opinion questions (Figure 8.A), the court seal slightly improved respondents’ 

impressions of the likelihood of receiving a refund, by approximately 3 percentage points.92 

 

90 See Appendix Table G.4 for 95% confidence intervals and results of joint significance testing across the email 

scenarios. 

91 All differences cited throughout the discussion are statistically significant at p<.05 using a two-tailed t-test, unless 

otherwise stated. 

 

92 Particularly, the percentage of respondents who said the refund was somewhat or very likely and the percentage 

who said half or more people who filed claims would receive a refund improved at a statistically significant level 

when the email displayed the court seal. Conversely, significance tests indicated that the court seal does not impact 

respondents’ impressions of the ease of meeting the refund requirements and the time it would take to file a claim. 
72 

Figure 8:		Email Body Results, by Court Seal

A:		Summary Rates

B:		Components of Comprehension Rate

Percentage of Respondents Answering “Definitely True” or “Probably True”

Without

Court Seal

With Court

Seal

Correct Statements

Q3b: This e‐mail provides information on a class action settlement. 76% 78%

Q3d: This e‐mail provides information on getting a refund. 67% 68%

Incorrect Statements

Q3a: This e‐mail is an advertisement. 39% 36%

Q3c: This e‐mail provides shipping confirmation of an online order. 15% 14%

C:		Components of Correct Understanding of Next Steps

Percentage of Respondents Answering “Definitely True” or “Probably True”

Without

Court Seal

With Court

Seal

To get a refund through the class action settlement....

Correct Statement

Q7c: I should fill out a claims form at the website provided in the e‐mail. 81% 82%

Incorrect Statements

Q7a: I should take no further action; I will automatically receive the refund if the

class wins the lawsuit.

26% 25%

Q7b: I should file a customer service complaint with Sonoro Technologies, Inc. 37% 35%

Q7d: I should hire a personal attorney to represent me in court 18% 18%

48%

39%

56%

61%

64%

1.10

51%

42%

59%

63%

67%

1.11

Comprehension Rate

Correct Understanding

of Next Steps

Indicated Refund was

Somewhat/Very Likely

Indicated Refund Requirements

Were Somewhat/Very Easy to Meet

Indicated that Half or More of Those

Who Applied Would Receive Refund

Time to Apply for Refund

(Average, in Hours)

Without Court Seal

With Court Seal
73 

Impact	of	Email	Format	

Respondents’ comprehension varied by the type of email format viewed (long, 

condensed, or experimental). In particular, respondents had a substantially better understanding 

when they viewed the long form. The long version also appears to improve respondents’ 

understanding of the claims process, as reflected in responses related to the ease of the claims 

process and the likelihood of receiving a refund. On the other hand, respondents viewing the 

experimental version had the best understanding of next steps required to receive the refund. 

Figures 9 summarizes these responses.

93 

Comprehension Rates by Email Format: By comparing responses to questions about the 

nature of the email across format conditions (Figure 9.A), we found that respondents viewing the 

long version had the highest comprehension rate, measuring 11 and 13 percentage points higher 

than the comprehension rates of the condensed and experimental email format conditions, 

respectively. As seen in Figure 9.B, along each component of the comprehension rate measure, a 

higher percentage of respondents in the long email body condition took away the correct 

understanding—for example, they were less likely to think that the email was an advertisement 

and more likely to understand that it provided information on a class action or refund. 

Understanding of Next Steps by Email Format: Overall, respondents had a poor 

understanding of next steps, with less than half of them answering these questions correctly. 

Respondents viewing the experimental email format understood the next steps required to 

receive the refund at a higher rate than those viewing the other email bodies—44% of those 

viewing the experimental email understood next steps correctly, compared to 38% to 39% in the 

other two email format conditions. Although the percentage saying that one must file a claim 

form was within 2 percentage points across conditions (81% to 83%), respondents viewing the 

long format were more likely to say (incorrectly) that no action is needed to receive a refund (by 

6 percentage points over the condensed and 8 percentage points over the experimental format). 

This divergence appears to be the primary reason for the experimental group’s increased overall 

understanding of next steps. 

Impression of Refund and Claims Process by Email Format: Overall, those viewing the 

long version had a slightly better understanding of the ease of applying for the refund and how 

likely they would be to receive it. In particular, viewers of the long format stated at higher rates 

that: 1) the refund was somewhat (or very) likely, 2) the refund requirements were somewhat (or 

very easy) to meet, and 3) half or more people who filed a claim would receive the refund 

(differences range from 2 to 7 percentage points, as seen in Figure 9.A). There are no 

 

93 See Appendix Table G.4 for 95% confidence intervals and results of joint significance testing across the email 

scenarios. 
74 

statistically significant differences across formats regarding the time respondents thought it 

would take to apply for the refund: on average, respondents thought it would take a little more 

than an hour to apply for the refund regardless of the email format. 

Figure 9:		Email Body Results, by Email Format

A:		Summary Rates

B:		Components of Comprehension Rate

Percentage of Respondents Answering “Definitely True” or “Probably True”

Long

Format

Condensed

Format

Experimental

Format

Correct Statements

Q3b: This e‐mail provides information on a class action settlement. 82% 75% 73%

Q3d: This e‐mail provides information on getting a refund. 70% 66% 66%

Incorrect Statements

Q3a: This e‐mail is an advertisement. 30% 40% 42%

Q3c: This e‐mail provides shipping confirmation of an online order. 15% 17% 14%

57%

39%

61%

64%

69%

1.14

46%

38%

54%

60%

64%

1.11

44%

44%

57%

62%

65%

1.07

Comprehension Rate

Correct Understanding

of Next Steps

Indicated Refund was

Somewhat/Very Likely

Indicated Refund Requirements

Were Somewhat/Very Easy to Meet

Indicated that Half or More of Those

Who Applied Would Receive Refund

Time to Apply for Refund

(Average, in Hours)

Long

Condensed

Experimental
75 

Figure 9:		Email Body Results, by Email Format (continued)

C:		Components of Correct Understanding of Next Steps

Percentage of Respondents Answering “Definitely True” or “Probably True”

Long

Format

Condensed

Format

Experimental

Format

To get a refund through the class action settlement....

Correct Statement

Q7c: I should fill out a claims form at the website provided in the     

email.

83% 82% 81%

Incorrect Statements

Q7a: I should take no further action; I will automatically receive the

refund if the class wins the lawsuit.

30% 24% 22%

Q7b: I should file a customer service complaint with Sonoro

Technologies, Inc.

35% 39% 34%

Q7d: I should hire a personal attorney to represent me in court 15% 21% 17%

Court	Seal	–	Email	Format		

Figure 10 summarizes select closed-ended responses for each of the six court seal 

condition- format combinations. 

Consistent with the main effects analysis presented above, the court seal improved nearly 

all measures of consumer takeaway within each email body condition. The court seal’s impact, 

at 5 percentage points, was largest when displayed on the experimental email format and gauging 

respondents’ impression of the likelihood of receiving a refund. 

When considering each court seal condition-email format combination listed in Figure 

10, we found that the long, court-seal version performed the best for comprehension of the nature 

of the email, and both versions of the experimental email format (e.g., one with and one without 

a court seal) performed the best for consumer understanding of next steps required to receive a 

refund, regardless of the display of a court seal. That is, the court seal had no further effect on 

understanding of next steps when limiting the analysis to those viewing the experimental version. 

Responses related to consumer impressions of the refund and claim process revealed that the 

experimental, court-seal version performed just as well as the long, email body version. In 

particular, there were no statistically significant differences in the percentage answering that the 

refund was likely, that the refund requirements were easy to meet, and that half or more of 

claimants would receive the refund. 
76 

Figure 10:		Email Body Results, by Court Seal – Email Format

Comprehension

Rate

Correct

Understanding

of Next Steps

Indicated

Refund Was

Somewhat/

Very Likely

Indicated Refund

Requirements  

Were

Somewhat/Very

Easy to Meet

Indicated that

Half or More of

Those Who

Applied Would

Receive Refund

Without the Display of a Court Seal   

Long Format 55% 38% 60% ^ 65% ^ 68% ^

Condensed

Format

45% 36% 54% 58% 63%

Experimental

Format

42% 44%^ 55% 60% 63%

With the Display of a Court Seal

Long Format 59% ^ 41% 62% ^ 63% ^ 70% ^

Condensed

Format

47% 39% 55% 62% 65%

Experimental

Format

46% 45%^ 60% ^ 64% ^ 67% ^

Notes: ^ denotes maximum percentages (e.g., the highest comprehension rate, highest rate of correct understanding 

of next steps, and so forth) within each column and percentages that are not statistically different from the 

maximum, using a two-tailed t-test at p<.05. See Appendix Table G.8. 

	 	
77 

Analysis	of	Open‐Ended	Responses,	Email	Body	Results	

As a supplementary exercise, we examined open-ended responses for Q4, which asked 

respondents to describe in their own words why they thought they had received the email. We 

focused the analysis on mistrust-related words across email body formats (long, condensed, 

experimental) because respondents mentioned these words frequently, and because the largest 

difference in the mention of these words occurred along the email-format dimension (rather than 

the court-seal dimension).94 

As seen in Figure 11, respondents who viewed the long email format mentioned mistrustrelated words at the lowest rate across all three email formats. Specifically, 13% of respondents 

viewing the long format mentioned such words, 7 percentage points lower than those viewing the 

condensed version (20% of respondents viewing the condensed email mentioned mistrust-related 

words) and 9 percentage points lower than those viewing the experimental version (22% of 

respondents viewing the condensed email mentioned mistrust-related words). 

Figure 11:		Percentage of Respondents Mentioning Mistrust‐Related Words in

Response to:		“Why do you think you received this email?” (Q4)

	 	

 

94 As before, tabulations of the most frequently-occurring words indicated that respondents used the following words 

to describe mistrust: “scam(s),” “spam,” “virus,” “phishing,” “junk,” “fake,” “suspicious,” “afraid,” “legitimate,” 

“fraudulent,” “suspect,” “malware,” “unsolicited,” “fishy,” “gimmick,” “sketchy,” and “bogus.” 

13%

20%

22%

Long

Condensed

Experimental
78 

Discussion		

The Notice Study examined the importance of various inbox and email body 

characteristics for consumer perceptions of the studied class action notices. Specifically, in Part 

I, the goal was to understand whether sender names and subject lines influenced respondents’ 

stated likelihoods of opening an class action email and their understanding of the nature of the 

email (i.e., that it concerned a class actions settlement or a refund, and did not represent a 

promotional email). Part II examined whether the email’s format (i.e., long, condensed, or 

experimental) and whether the display of a court seal improved consumer understanding of the 

nature of the email and steps required to receive compensation, as well as to gauge personal 

opinions related to the ease of the claims and refund process. The study’s findings are based on 

a fictitious class action environment and a static email interface, and hence, should not be 

extrapolated to all emailed class action notices. However, the analysis provides useful insights 

for potential ways to improve consumer interaction with, and understanding of, emailed class 

action notices. 

In Part I, we found that the phrasing of the subject line impacts consumer perceptions to a 

greater degree than the sender name does. For example, the inclusion of the refund amount in 

the subject line had a large negative impact on comprehension rates for study respondents. 

Furthermore, open-ended responses indicated that more respondents who viewed subject lines 

containing the “$100” refund amount believed it to be an untrustworthy email compared to those 

who viewed subject lines that omitted the refund amount. 

The Part I analysis also demonstrates that opening rates and email comprehension do not 

go hand in hand. In particular, the subject line Notice of Refund had substantially higher stated 

opening rates than other subject lines, but fewer respondents viewing this subject line understood 

the type of information contained in the email. On the other hand, the subject lines Lavin v. 

Sonoro Technologies Class Action Settlement and Notice of Class Action Settlement had poor 

stated opening rates, but the highest comprehension rates among all six subject lines tested. 

In Part II, the long email format (i.e., a traditional, text-heavy notice conventionally used 

in nationwide class action settlements) performed the best on most measures of consumer 

perception in the study. While the streamlined, experimental version was most effective in 

conveying next steps required to receive settlement compensation, the long version was 

substantially more effective at helping respondents understand the nature of the email. In 

addition, respondents viewing the long version were slightly more likely to believe that the 

claims and refund process would work in their favor. Furthermore, the supplementary openended analysis suggests respondents may have viewed the condensed and streamlined versions 

with suspicion, more frequently describing them as “spam,” “scam,” or similar words. The Part 
79 

II results also indicate the court seal’s presence in the notice minimally improves consumer 

perceptions. 

Our findings point to the potential for future research as well as insights into the ongoing 

discussions surrounding low participation rates in class action settlements. In particular, we find 

that rephrasing subject lines may help notice campaigns reach more class members. We 

recommend that future research on this topic explore whether similar findings hold in actual, 

non-simulated class action notice campaigns. This could be done through randomized, 

controlled testing, such as A/B testing, where campaigns could compare the effectiveness—in 

terms of opening rates and claims rates—of multiple versions of subject lines by randomizing 

subject lines across class members. While this study finds the effects of the sender name on 

consumer perceptions to be minimal, this result may be particularly reflective of the fictional 

nature of the study environment (due to respondents being unfamiliar with the company name 

Sonoro Technologies); hence, we recommend that researchers explore the impact of email sender 

name further within the context of actual class action settlements. Although absolute 

percentages from this study are not projectable to the population, our findings suggest that even 

in a controlled internet panel setting, many respondents did not correctly understand the nature of 

the email and the steps required to receive a refund even after viewing the body of the email. 

Finally, our results suggest that consumers may not fully understand the value of participating in 

class action settlements, as indicated by the divergence in stated opening rates between subject 

lines that contained the phrase “class action settlement” and subject lines that simply stated 

“notice of refund,” without reference to a class action. This may point to the need for broadlevel approaches to educating consumers about the potential monetary benefits available through 

class action settlements.