[anigbrowl]

It can, although that hasn't been litigated yet - that's the class action part the article refers to. A lawsuit like that often starts with a smallish number of plaintiffs whose injuries (in the sense of being negatively affected by someone else) are similar enough for a case to be made that they're representative of a larger group, whereas if there was only one plaintiff it would be impossible to decide whether a pattern of behavior existed.

Lawyers love class action suits because while they may only generate a small payout for each plaintiff the law firm running the suit may collect 30% of the payout in return for administering the settlement (writing to all potential plaintiffs, advising them of their rights under the settlement, disbursing payments and so forth). That's a lot of administrative work but for a large settlement it can still bevery lucrative. So much so that in very large lawsuits there is sometimes litigation between competing firms about which is best positioned to represent the plaintiffs, before the main matter is litigated. ISTR that happened with the tobacco litigation by the states in the 1990s, which ultimately involved something like a $20 billion payout.