I'm pretty enraged that the government was illegally taxing me, and now that those taxes have actually been found to be illegal, I'm not getting a refund.
Corporations claiming the refund on my behalf (and then not propagating that refund to me) is just icing on that shit-cake.
I think what's missing in your (and the plaintiff's) analysis is that the government did not illegally tax you, it illegally taxed importers. The fact that those importers "chose" to raise their prices as a reaction is their business decision.
I think what you and the plaintiff need to show (direct connection between supplier costs and consumer prices) fundamentally goes against free business in the US. I mean, companies change prices all the time for whatever reasons they want, no?
But IANAL, "unjust enrichment" is apparently a real claim (though not sure if it applies to a store-consumer relationship) and consumer protection laws exist, so maybe I'm wrong.
It's this and I don't know how people here can't see it. You're getting fleeced by corporations as they walk away with all of the money thanks to an illegal tax by the US government on most consumer goods.
Companies get to benefit from higher prices being standardized (once a price baseline go up, they rarely go back down) and they get another check from Uncle Sam.
Corporations claiming the refund on my behalf (and then not propagating that refund to me) is just icing on that shit-cake.