Now the attorney who represented the nine skycaps, all of whom worked at Boston's Logan Airport, wants to certify the case as a class-action suit on behalf of hundreds of skycaps who work mostly as contractors for American at about 60 airports across the USA.

She also is looking into filing similar lawsuits against other airlines that in recent years have imposed curbside baggage check fees.

"This judgment proves that human beings are willing to pay tips to those who help them make their trips a little more bearable," said Shannon Liss-Riordan, a Boston employment attorney who represented the skycaps against American. The airline, she said, "stuffed its hands into the pockets of some of its lowest-paid workers and redirected their tip money to its own coffers."

The jury found that American violated a Massachusetts tipping law and interfered in the customary tips-based relationship skycaps have with travelers.

Tim Smith, a spokesman for Fort Worth-based American, said the carrier "is disappointed by the verdict and the amount awarded" and is evaluating its legal options.

The case stems from American's decision in 2005 to begin charging customers $2 for each bag checked curbside. The change angered the company's skycaps, who are paid like restaurant waiters — below minimum wage, augmented by customers' tips.

Liss-Riordan argued that travelers mistook American's new service fee, which the skycaps were required to charge, as a tip that went to the skycaps, and therefore did not tip at all, or tipped less than they had before.

Liss-Riordan said American managers forecast in company planning documents in 2005 that the airline would get $16 million to $20 million a year in "savings/revenues" from the curbside bag checking fee. But, she said, the documents also showed that the carrier's cost of employing skycaps and their contracting companies was only about $7 million nationwide, leaving $9 million to $13 million in profit for the airline.

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