In doing so, HP will make it harder for the individuals to successfully sue, as they will no longer be able to pool into a large class to fight the company's massive legal team.
Speaking as a former EDS and former HP employee, I would love to see employees stick it to HP. But this statement isn't really true. Individuals can still file lawsuits on a class-action basis, but must be more careful to ensure that the class is more homogeneous than the current attempt. Shame on the class-action lawyers for letting HP school them on this point.
Knowing all of the employees that HP has bent over and ass-fucked over the years, there's no reason that the classes can't be larger than the one that filed, though I'm sure there are statutes of limitation that will come into play.
Even with all that, it's still disappointing, only because the proud tradition of Bill and Dave is effectively dead and has been for a long time now.