Gannett News Service

WASHINGTON - Every year, millions of Americans wind up in court, sometimes without even being aware that they've been named a plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against a company accused of consumer fraud or corporate wrongdoing.

Class action lawsuits are a way for the powerless to take on the powerful. Brown v. Board of Education, the case that dismantled racial segregation in American schools, was a class action lawsuit. The 1998 tobacco settlements that pumped billions of dollars into state health programs and anti-smoking campaigns also stemmed from a class action lawsuit.

In some cases, huge damage awards and court rulings serve as punishment for defendants who are forced to change their business practices or compensate victims. But the problem President Bush and other class action reform supporters see is that some cases produce more financial benefits for attorneys and few, if any, for victims.

Bush says greedy trial lawyers have hijacked the class action system, collecting huge fees from what some call frivolous lawsuits. When some of these cases are settled, the attorneys walk away with millions, while the plaintiffs get pennies.

Now, Congress is on the verge of a major overhaul of the class action system. But consumer advocates warn the changes could make it even harder for ordinary citizens to file suit if they find themselves overcharged, shortchanged, defrauded or misled by a corporation.

Caught in the middle of the debate are the consumers themselves.

''Where is the justice in this?'' asked Alita Ditkowsky of Commack, N.Y., who joined a class action lawsuit against RCA after the manufacturer refused to fix her television set. The suit alleged the manufacturer sold defective merchandise.

When the suit was settled, the attorneys collected $22 million, while Ditkowsky walked away with a $50 coupon good toward the purchase of another RCA television set.

''This lawyer got $22 million,'' Ditkowsky said. ''I'm still left with a broken TV set.''

A similar thing happened to millions of Blockbuster customers named in a lawsuit over excessive late fees. Their attorneys collected more than $9 million, while the customers got coupons good for two free movie rentals. Ameritech customers collected $5 phone cards for their participation in a suit over unauthorized charges on their bills. Attorneys walked away with $16 million.

The law ends the current practice of shopping a case around from state to state, looking for a friendly judge or state consumer laws that favor their case. That is how Madison County, Ill., attracted so many class action lawsuits.

''The problem is, people are filing suits all over the country in a state courthouse that's affecting people in other states,'' Bush said at a recent class action forum. ''And oftentimes businesses are getting drug into it, or people are getting drug into it that are unaware they're getting drug into it, and if they are getting drug into it, when there's finally a settlement, they don't get much. And the lawyers get a lot.''

On average, between 10 percent and 30 percent of the damages in a class action case go to attorney fees. The rest goes to the plaintiffs, but in large-scale suits that name many people as members of a class, the individual payouts may be miniscule.

''The system is exactly set up so that lawyers are supposed to be the policemen, to stay alert for small abuses that affect a large number of people,'' said George Washington University Law School professor Roger Schechter. ''When a small harm is inflicted on a large number of people, nobody is going to do anything, most likely, unless there is a financial incentive to monitor the marketplace.''

The law's opponents say the measure is too sweeping and could have an impact on class action cases that end up helping large numbers of people. Marty Preston actually lost money when she joined a lawsuit against the Bank of Boston over a miscalculation in her mortgage escrow account. The bank had been shaving a few pennies off her account each month.

''It was just a little thing in the mail - 'Would you like to be a member of this lawsuit?' I thought, what could it hurt? Why not?'' said Preston, now 67 and living in the Wisconsin Dells.

In the end, the case was settled, the attorneys collected $8.5 million and Preston received a check for $5. She thought that was the end of the matter, until she checked her bank statement the next month and found a $100 charge on her escrow account for her attorney's fees.

''It got my dander up,'' Preston said. ''The idea that he could pick my pocket like that. I thought, 'This is legal? How could this be legal?' ”