acções com processo comum = ordinary lawsuits
processo pendente = pending proceeding

Nada a ver com "class action" (acção colectiva)

Veja estes exemplos:

[PDF] Status of
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat
directly to the public, outside pending proceedings. ... In case of ordinary lawsuits at normal civil or penal courts, the plaintive may ask for ...
http://pdc.ceu.hu/archive/00002330/01/publicparticippractice...
Paul v. Friedman[FN 13] "While SLAPP suits 'masquerade as ordinary lawsuits' the conceptual features ... there was a connection to an issue but no pending proceeding; here, ...
www.casp.net/friedman.html

Project Gutenberg's The American Judiciary, by Simeon E. Baldwin ...... where County Courts have jurisdiction of ordinary lawsuits the judges, ... of the pending proceeding, on pain of forfeiting a certain sum of money. ...
www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/7amjd10.txt