THE LITTLE GUY MYTH: THE FAIR ACTS VICTIMIZATION OF

Big business dominates the media. We are inundated with news of billion-dollar mergers and corporate takeovers, but that is not the American Dream. For manyyears, the United States has had a love affair with small business. Americans may shop in megamalls and Super Wal-Marts, but they admire and respect the entrepreneurial spirit embodied in the many small businesses that increasingly drive our economy. ' The passion and concern the public has for small businesses, particularly entrepreneurs, is unparalleled.2 One significant example of such passion and concern is the proposed Fair Access to Indemnity Act (FAIR Act), which seeks to award attorneys ' fees to small businesses that prevail against the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in litigation. Significantly, the Act is not reciprocal in that the agencies are not entitled to attorneys ' fees when they prevail against the guilty small business. Although proponents claim that the rationale behind the FAIR Act is to "even the playing field " between large government agencies and small businesses, this Note illustrates that the true rationale is the clandestine desire to give small businesses advantages that are perhaps unwarranted. Ifit seems equivocal that small businesses are well protected and cared for, one need only look at the legislation supporting small businesses within the last fifteen years. The first section of this Note focuses on the enactment and development of the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA)3 as a way to "protect " small business employers from incurring legal costs in litigation against gov-ernment agencies.4 The second section analyzes the sentiment surrounding the EAJA's failure, and the more extreme bill that ha