With canned tuna in the news due to a recent recall of Bumble Bee and Chicken of the Sea tuna, a few readers remembered the can under-filling class action that they filed claims in last year. One reader pointed out that it’s been a few months: shouldn’t the checks and free tuna vouchers be coming soon? Well… no. Not yet.

If this is the first time you’ve taken part in a class action, here’s something that may temper your expectations a bit. While tuna is a very different context from diamond jewelry, class members in a lawsuit against diamond sellers de Beers filed their claims in 2008, and found actual checks in their mailbox five years later. That’s worrisome for anyone who moved in the interim, but not unusual. It sometimes takes a while for these cases to get through the courts.

We checked with the law firm behind the suit, and they pointed us to their web page for the class action, the always-memorable TunaLawsuit.com. Their proposed settlement was denied final approval by the court. [PDF] There was a case management conference earlier this week, and the attorneys representing the class of tuna-eaters filed another proposal [PDF] yesterday. A class action needs final approval from the court to even begin sending things out to class members.

It’s hard to make predictions, but if the new proposal is approved, you will probably see those tuna checks by the end of this year. We can’t make any guarantees.