In a sign that plaintiffs’ class action lawyers are becoming more powerful than ever, the following quote appeared in an article in today’s issue of The Economic Times:
Class actions are very strong in the US and are pretty serious in terms of penalties and imprisonment.
In fairness, something in the quote may have been lost in translation, but just to set the record straight, imprisonment is generally not an available remedy in a U.S. class action. The article was quoting an Indian lawyer describing the U.S. system for an Indian audience. It looks like what he was trying to convey is that class actions often come as a result of revelations of corporate fraud that may also lead to regulatory and criminal action, which is where penalties and imprisonment might come into play.
ClassActionBlawg.com 
Perhaps the author was referring to the little-known section (i) of F. R. Civ. P. 23, which permits class members “to put defendant, or agents of the defendant, in the stocks in the Town Square for 10 days, subject to the time computation provisions of F. R. Civ. P. 6.” I believe that subsection (i)(2) permits, as an alternative to the stocks (incidentally, most case law supports substitution of the pillory for the stocks), stoning of the defendant or defendant’s agent, or counsel, by stones no heavier than the median body weight of a swallow. However, there’s a circuit split about whether it’s an African swallow or a European swallow.