Perspective: Is anyone not involved in a class-action lawsuit?

I don't have silicone implants. I never used a Dalkon shield. I don't smoke, I didn't work at Publix, I've never driven an exploding Pinto or ridden on defective tires.

However, as I recently discovered, even I am part of an enormous class-action lawsuit.

In our litigious society, it seems that hardly a week goes without a group of people suing some company, industry or organization over something allegedly dangerous, crooked or unhealthy. Certainly some of these class-action lawsuits have merit -- few would argue, for example, that women fitted with defective IUDs shouldn't be compensated for the miscarriages, infertility and other heart-breaking health problems that resulted.

But how much did I and millions of other members of American Airlines' frequent-flier program really suffer when American raised the requirement for a free coach-class ticket from 20,000 to 25,000 points?

I certainly didn't lose any sleep over it. In fact, it happened so long ago I had almost forgotten I belonged to American's frequent-flier club. If I'd ever been traumatized by the fact I was 5,000 points short of getting a ticket to visit my aunt in Albuquerque, I'd long since recovered.

Yet a few weeks back I received a notice informing me that I was part of a class-action suit against American and advising me of the proposed settlement.

Would I be getting a free ticket to Europe? Hawaii? Schenectady?

Visions of an unexpected vacation quickly disappeared as I slogged through the dense legal jargon. The most that "class members" in my category can expect is this: a 5,000-mile discount on a frequent-flier award or a certificate for $75 off on a ticket costing at least $220.

Wow.

But let's read on. In return for negotiating this settlement, the lawyers representing me and other plaintiffs will apply for fees "not to exceed $25-million."

No wonder we're such a lawsuit-happy nation.

Out of curiosity, I decided to do a little survey right here in the Times newsroom. "Have you ever been part of a class-action suit?" I e-mailed co-workers.

Within seconds, my computer screen was flooded with messages. Several people were also plaintiffs in the American suit, hardly surprising since journalists tend to travel a lot. But I also heard from colleagues who had discovered -- often to their surprise -- that they had been part of class actions against finance companies, restaurants, carmakers, concert promoters, furniture stores, previous employers, etc., etc.

Based on this I began to wonder -- is anybody in America not involved in a class-action lawsuit?

"There may be some newborn babies," says Walter Olson. "But they'll all get to sue at some time."

Olson, a Yale-educated author and think-tank fellow, is one of the harshest critics of the U.S. civil justice system. Last year he started a Web site -- http://overlawyered.com -- that is brimming with examples of a system that "too often enriches its participants at the public's expense and resists even modest efforts at reform and accountability."

Among Olson's favorite targets are class-action lawsuits, the creeping kudzu of American jurisprudence.

The premise of a class action is sound -- rather than deal with multiple lawsuits, why not combine the claims of people who have suffered similar damages at the hands of the same defendant? First used to resolve landowner-tenant disputes in medieval England, class actions became a powerful tool for societal change -- in the United States, school desegregation and legalized abortions were the result of class-action lawsuits.

But in recent years, the number of class actions has ballooned as lawyers found them an effective way to generate enormous fees under the guise of consumer protection. Between 1988 and 1998, class-action filings increased by 338 percent in federal courts and more than 1,000 percent in state courts, according to one research group. For millions of plaintiffs in these cases, the payoff is hardly worth the trouble of filling out and mailing in the claims form. Two of my Times colleagues were part of a class-action suit against a finance company that overcharged customers -- one eventually got a check for $1.85, the other for 34 cents, barely enough to cover the postage.

In some cases, plaintiffs actually lose money by winning class actions. Perhaps the most notorious example is that of BancBoston Mortgage Corp., accused of improprieties in the way it handled mortgage escrow accounts. An Alabama judge ruled that the plaintiffs' lawyers could deduct more than $8.5-million from their clients' escrow accounts to cover the legal fees incurred in reaching a settlement.

"It was just unfathomable to me," Ted Benn, a lawyer himself, told the Mobile Register when he discovered $144.25 had been billed to his BancBoston account. "When I mentioned this to my legal colleagues, they said, "No, that could not have happened. You couldn't get a court to bless that.' To a person, that's the reaction I got."

According to Olson, the legal-system gadfly, abuses tend to occur when no one is paying much attention to a class-action suit because the alleged damages are so minor and the potential rewards so small.

In cases of major financial fraud, where plaintiffs have lost a lot of money but stand to recoup a lot, "they have a reason to look over the lawyers' shoulders," Olson says.

"But when class-actions are a mile wide and an inch deep, it is very unclear that most of the people would have felt like suing in the first place. It's essentially impossible for anyone to look over the lawyer's shoulder, and there's much more opportunity for the lawyers to behave badly."

What's the solution?

One bill now before Congress would require all nationwide class-action suits to be filed in federal courts. That would cut down on "forum shopping," whereby plaintiffs' lawyers scout around for friendly state judges.

"They can go to certain favorite courts in Alabama or California or Philadelphia, where they know the judges will be much more likely to let something proceed to trial and duly reward hard-working attorneys at the end of the settlement," Olson says.

"But under this bill, if you had a national class, you could no longer take that to a county in rural Alabama where the judge used to be a law partner of the plaintiff's attorney, as actually happened. Federal judges by and large are a more uniform, professional group and I think it would make a pretty big difference in shaping the system up."

As for the American frequent-flier suit, I debated whether to return the claims form. I'm sure the plaintiffs' lawyers, both from Chicago, are nice guys, but did I want any part of a system that could make them $25-million richer because of something as trivial as frequent-flier points?

In the end, I decided to send the form back -- just to see what happens, I rationalized. In the meantime, I discovered I was part of yet another class-action suit, this one involving a former employer.

Where will it ever end?

Susan Martin can be contacted at susan@sptimes.com.

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