The St. Petersburg Times newspaper carried a piece in their Perspective Section on Feb. 1, 2009 about a class action lawsuit against L’Oreal, Estee Lauder and other cosmetic companies for allegedly conspiring with department stores to fix prices.

The “aggrieved class” included customers who purchased certain cosmetics between May 29, 1994 and July 16, 2003. The settlement required the companies to give $175 million of free cosmetics “for as long as supplies last” beginning Jan. 20th.

The article’s writer went to a department store only to find the free supplies had lasted only days! Her point, however, was the lawyers who filed the suit were paid $24 million while the settlement benefited an insignificantly small number of the aggrieved class, who had allegedly been wronged.

I fully understand the value of class action lawsuits which have clearly served a larger good. For example, companies causing soil and water pollution come to mind, when no individual plaintiff could afford to take on the company. In such cases, they were exactly as designed.

The cases, however, which dominate the news, are ones like this cosmetic case or one involving toothbrush manufacturers- where the aggrieved class gets a new toothbrush while the lawyers receive millions of dollars. Everyone has their pet example since most of us receive notice regularly that we are a member of some aggrieved class, which some lawyer is suing for our alleged benefit.

This is another example of the doctrine of “unintended consequences.” The drafters of the class action laws, I’m sure, never intended them to be used to enrich lawyers, while the affected parties received a few cents. Unfortunately, it plays into the hands of the tort reformers who argue our system is broken.

I am opposed to broad tort reform; we have certainly had enough of that in Florida. However, unless these types of class action suits are limited, we may lose large ground in the tort wars as these cases are trumpeted as evidence to bolster the reformers agenda.