In Ciraolo v. City of New York (216 F. 3d 236 [2000]), it was ruled that when someone injures multiple victims, and only one of those victims files a lawsuit against the injurer, then the damage award to the plaintiff is to be multiplied by the number of victims that the court estimates were harmed by the same activity suffered by the plaintiff in question.
The case concerned the New York’s policy of automatic strip searching of all entrants to the city’s jails. The court ruled that the city was in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and would have to pay the plaintiff $19,000 in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages.
But tens of thousands of arrestees had been wrongfully strip searched in New York City jails. Eventually New York had to pay $50 million in a mass tort settlement.
You can read about the case here:
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/LAW/01/col ... rch.01.15/Fortunately for Hyde, a different jurisdiction and the statute of limitations prevents holding it liable towards its entire female population, forced to strip before a male gym teacher on a campaign against female body fat. Yet, as long as Hyde School continues to violate the constitutional rights of its students through “a myriad of subtly different forms of humiliation,” Ciraolo v. City of New York will be of relevance.
