Hence the legal profession is nothing more nor less than a corrupt protection racket run by people who were too stupid to do math and had to wuss it out in something easy like law school.
Lawyers are rent-seekers and, like ants at a picnic, they are a reliable indicator of corruption.
There are dozens of federal agencies whose only purpose is to deal with these things and yet that isn't enough for the profession that asserts that it must be one-third of our government, at least.
In addition, I think the lawyer is lying about the label. I think it's a much safer assumption inasmuch as lawyers can lie with impunity. It's easier to sue a corporation than to sue a lawyer. If lawyers were subjected to the same burdens they place on the rest of us, at least 50% of lawsuits would be red on red (lawyer vs. lawyer).
Let us suppose, for the sake of argument that (a) there is actual harm beyond mere overeating (the science is weak at best) and (b) the company did not disclose the information. Let's suppose all that is true. What happens? The settlement will surely not reimburse any one of the litigants for a lifetime of Fruit Roll-ups. General Mills doesn't have a pile of money to shovel out. Moreover, even if they could shovel money out, they'd pass it on to the consumer (presumably of all of their products.
So the meager settlement will be spread so thin, I suspect that the checks the litigants will get will be less than the postage required to send them. Except...
The lawyer gets rich. And that's what it's all about isn't it? While the rest of us will pay higher costs, while GM will lay off employees, while the stockholders will lose money and while the people who suffered actual "harm" will get pocket change, the trial lawyer gets rich.
And for good measure, the corporate defense attorneys and the judge aren't doing too bad either for people who were too dumb to do math.
Corrupt protection racket.
Where to begin? You're screed is almost too rich to indulge, but I'll give it a go. First, let me guess, you're divorced and she had the better lawyer?
I'm assuming you must be some kind of mathematical genius. But, it's surprising that an intellect of your stature engages in such strained logic - for example - you hate lawyers, ergo lawyers must be horrible at math. It's interesting, I'll give you that.
Additionally, for someone with such genius it's interesting that the very elementary legal principle of "fraud" seems to be outside your grasp. Perhaps like Einstein's inability to lace his own shoes, this seems to simple a task for you to deal with. Be that as it may, I'll try to break it down for you.
If you sell someone a gold ring and tell them that it's solid gold at the time of the sale, and at a later time the buyer discovers that it's not solid gold, but gold plate, that is fraud through misrepresentation, as described in the US Code. If General Mills is selling a product that contains an ingredient that was not properly disclosed, that too is fraud. Are you with me thus far, or are you working on the revision to your new standard model?
"Let us suppose, for the sake of argument that (a) there is actual harm beyond mere overeating (the science is weak at best) and (b) the company did not disclose the information."
If you think that the science that underscores the health risks of partially-hydrogenated fats can be described as "weak at best", I'm really beginning to doubt your genius, and others may as well.
But, if you're arguing that this woman shouldn't seek judicial redress for being allegedly defrauded by General Mills because you perceive the "system" to be flawed and wanting, I don't find that argument very compelling. If you had cancer, would you forgo treatment because the process can be ugly and absent guarantee, or would you still press forward hoping for at least a chance of a positive resolution? I hope you'd press forward, and if you were intellectually honest, you wouldn't criticize this woman for the same. Then again, with your intellect and genius, who knows what superior logic you might apply, eh?