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26 U.S.F. L. Rev. 261 (1991-1992)
Grassroots Impact Litigation: Mass Filing of Small Claims

handle is hein.journals/usflr26 and id is 274 raw text is: Grassroots Impact Litigation: Mass Filing of Small Claims By ANDREW D. FREEMAN* and JULI E. FARRIS Introduction IN SEPTEMBER 1981, Linda Dyson, Delores Huajardo, and 170 of their neighbors filed suit against the San Francisco International Air- port in the San Mateo County Small Claims Court. Their complaint was not unusual. As airports have grown larger, busier, and noisier, plaintiffs all over the country have brought suits seeking compensation for physi- cal and emotional injury from airport noise and for the diminution in value of neighboring property.' These middle and upper-middle class Bay Area residents differ from litigants elsewhere in their revolutionary method. They filed small claims suits en masse instead of filing a single class action suit, filing traditional individual claims, or battling in the political arena. Moreover, because California does not allow attorneys to represent litigants in small claims court, the San Francisco neighbors represented themselves. As a result, they took a more active role in their case than traditional plaintiffs and saved a great deal of money. By taking their dispute to a court where they could represent them- selves, the San Francisco neighbors transformed the courts, where liti- gants often feel powerless, into an arena for community organizing and empowerment. Earlier literature suggests that class actions could have such an effect.2 But lawyers rather than plaintiffs control the reins of * Associate, Brown, Goldstein & Levy, Baltimore, Maryland. A.B., 1981, Harvard College. J.D., 1986, Stanford University. ** Associate, Keller Rohrback, Seattle, Washington. B.A., 1982, J.D., 1987, Stanford University. The authors wish to thank Professor William Simon for his assistance. 1. For descriptions of some of this litigation, see Kathryn Landreth, Comment, The 1980 Airport Noise Act: Noise Abatement or Just More Noise?, 14 U.C. DAVIS L. REV. 1049 (1981) and James F. Gesualdi, Note, Gonna Fly Now: All the Noise About the Airport Access Problem, 16 HoFsrRA L. REV. 213 (1987). Airport noise litigation was recently substantially changed by the Airport Noise and Capacity Act of 1990, 49 U.S.C.A. App. §§ 2151-58 (Supp. 1991). This Article is incidentally concerned with the substance of such litigation. Its primary purpose is to explore the mass small claim method used by the neighbors of San Francisco International Airport. 2. See, e.g., Lynn Mather, Conclusion: The Mobilizing Potential of Class Actions, 57 IND.

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