Are MBS class actions a bust? And is that good for banks?

There's a line of thinking, however, that the banks' success in harnessing MBS class actions may turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory. One of the effects of limiting class actions so severely has been to drive individual MBS investors into filing their own cases. Individual investors don't have to rely on federal securities laws with restrictive time bars. They can bring claims for state and common-law fraud and negligence. And depending on the state, they have up to six years to file such suits. Moreover, lots of investors have demanded and received tolling agreements from potential defendants, so if out-of-court settlement discussions fail they can still sue.