In a typical federal class action lawsuit, the complaint is filed as a putative, or proposed, class action by one or several named plaintiffs on behalf of an unnamed class of similarly-situated plaintiffs. The unnamed class of plaintiffs are referred to as the putative class, or the hypothetical group of people the named plaintiffs are seeking to represent. After the complaint is filed, plaintiffs' counsel will make a motion requesting that the court certify the case as a class action. Until the court certifies the case as satisfying the criteria set out in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23, however, the case remains a putative class action and the unnamed class members remain the putative class.

Class actions filed in state court also may be referred to as putative until the court certifies the class under applicable state class action procedures.