I run Class Action Hero, a free settlement tracker and this post is about some of the datasets we’ve been working on.
Dataset 1 — the settlement tracker. Every class-action settlement currently open for claims in the United States: 288 cases as of October 23, 2026. Each record carries the settlement name, total fund, proof required to claim, eligibility, and filing deadline, plus the claims administrator where one is named. Coverage, stated plainly: 234 of the 288 publish a fund size ($6,350,402,822 combined); 254 have a dated claim deadline and 34 have been announced without one yet. Fund figures are total settlement funds, never per-person payout estimates. Compiled from official settlement websites and court notices, and kept current as cases open, close, and move.
Dataset 2 — the accountability join (new). Each settlement defendant resolved to its accountable parent company, then joined to that company’s federal political spending. 244 of the 288 settlements resolve to a single parent — 236 distinct companies, covering $4,517,968,881 of the $6,350,402,822 (71.1%). The other 44 are excluded and listed by name in an exclusions file: government, multi-defendant, joint, and ambiguous-name funds that cannot be attributed to one company without fabrication.
For each parent: open settlement dollars, federal lobbying reported to the Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act database for 2025 + 2026, and disbursements by FEC-registered committees connected to the company (2024 cycle + 2026 cycle to date).
Method limits, stated plainly:
- Lobbying is a floor, not a census. Of the 236 parents, 56 reported lobbying, 47 were searched and verified zero (no filings under the parent’s own names), and 133 were not searched, mostly small or private defendants with no LDA search term. A blank lobbying figure means “not searched,” and the dataset says so per row.
- PAC matching is exact-name only: a committee counts only when its FEC connected-organization name matches the parent exactly. 23 of 236 parents matched. This misses real PACs the FEC leaves unlinked — Amazon’s PAC exists, but the FEC leaves its connected-organization field blank, so the rule reports no PAC for Amazon rather than guessing.
- The windows differ because the sources do (lobbying 2025–26; PAC money 2024 + 2026 cycles). No annualization.
The contrast the join makes visible, in both directions: the National Association of Realtors reported $113,530,000 in lobbying and $79,900,289 in connected-PAC disbursements against $120,300,000 in open settlement funds. Credit Acceptance runs the other way, $694,000,000 in open settlement funds against $380,000 in lobbying. H&R Block reported $7,420,000 in lobbying against $367,540 in open settlement funds.
Files: joined.csv (one row per parent), mapping.csv (one row per settlement → parent), exclusions.md (the 44 exclusions, each with its reason).
- Dataset (DOI, citable snapshot): https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23463525
- Live tracker data (JSON): https://classactionhero.app/api/settlements.json
- CSV: https://classactionhero.app/api/cuts/all-settlements.csv
- License: CC-BY 4.0 — free to use with attribution.
Questions about coverage or method are welcome, as is feedback on what would make either dataset more useful.
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