real estate companies owning and\/or managing companies in or near the CHOP.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nBut beyond the named plaintiffs, the lawsuit attempts to establish a class of plaintiffs that it believes could number \u201cin the thousands.\u201d That class would include \u201cAll persons or entities who own property in, have a business in, or reside in the area in the City of Seattle bounded by the following streets: Denny Way, Union Street, Thirteenth Avenue, and East Broadway.\u201d There are strict rules for certification of a class of plaintiffs: it must be possible to identify and notify all potential class members of the lawsuit; the definition of the class must be unambiguous; the number of class members must make individual lawsuits impractical, and the factual and legal issues central to the case must be common among the class members. The city will likely fight the class certification on technical grounds, but at first blush there seems to be a good argument in favor of it.<\/p>\n