One out of every two Americans will sue some-

one, sometime. Current estimates indicate that

few of us can get through life without consult-

ing a lawyer four or five times. Why are we so

litigious? What do these numbers reveal about

our national character?

Suing has become an American parlor game.

In this timely book a legal affairs journalist es-

corts us through the welter of cases that coal-

prise the annals of American litigation history,

and analyzes what is peculiarly American

about tile way we use our courts. The under-

lying motivations for suits, what the author

calls "the hidden agenda" of the litigant;.fall

rather neatly into five categories. We sue to

protest, to express grief, to effect social and

political changes, to gain vindication, to get

money, and to get even. We use not just the

outeome of the suit but the entire process of a

courtroom trial, with its incumbent drama and

publicity, to accomplish our various goals.

Marks illuminates the facts behind the most

telling eases of our time, some little known and

some celebrated: the Buffalo Creek dana di-

saster suit (grief), the Freddie Prinze suit

(grief), Karen Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee (politi-

cal change), the Reader s Digest and NBC

women s suit (social policy), Kent State (vindi- cation), and the "Streetcar Named Desire" suit

(getting money). Intriguing details about cases

such as Jane Fonda s suit against Richard Nixon

and the Miclaelle Triola Marvin suit emeerge to

exemplify how innate a part of our national

character is the whole notion of courtroom

confrontation, in which two hired guns fight it

out in a sort of modern-day O.K. Corral show-

down.