Class actions are lawsuits brought by a representative member(s) of a large group of persons on behalf of all the members of the group who have suffered identical or similar harm for which the same defendant may be liable -- such as a defective product class action against a manufacturer or an employment discrimination class action against a large company.
Atlantic Beach, a city in Duval County, Florida, is the northernmost of the Jacksonville Beaches communities. When the majority of communities in Duval County consolidated with Jacksonville, Florida in 1968, Atlantic Beach, along with Jacksonville Beach, Neptune Beach, and Baldwin, Florida, remained quasi-independent. Like the other towns, it maintains its own municipal government but its residents vote in the Jacksonville mayoral election and have representation on the Jacksonville city council. The population was 13,368 at the 2000 census. According to the U. S Census estimates of 2005, the city had a population of 13,436. Development of Atlantic Beach took off around 1900 after Henry Flagler built the Mayport stop of his East Coast Railway to the north of the town. The Atlantic Beach Corporation bought and developed most of the land in what is now Atlantic Beach in 1915, and the town was incorporated in 1926. The town was expanded in the 1987 when it annexed Seminole Beach, which had previously been within the city limits of Jacksonville. The current mayor is John Meserve, who is also the manager of Fleet Landing, a veteran's retirement community in the town.