My guess as an American is that it incentivizes victims to step forward, if in a somewhat self-serving way. I wouldn't be surprised if you told an average blue collar American that you won a class action lawsuit against a former employer, of if you received a court settlement in the past against the FOO company, that they'd expect you to be quite rich, or at least to have received a large amount of dough. I suspect they would have no idea that the real winners were in fact the lawyers on both sides.