[Mb-civic] EDITORIAL Class-Action Lawsuits

[Michael Butler]

 The New York Times
February 2, 2005
EDITORIAL
Class-Action Lawsuits

Tort reform is in the eye of the beholder. In the name of reforming the
nation's civil justice system, and with scant public debate, President Bush
and Congressional Republicans are racing to reward wealthy business
supporters by changing the rules for class-action lawsuits. Their real
objective is to dilute the impact of strong state laws protecting consumers
and the environment and to make it harder for Americans to win redress in
court when they are harmed by bad corporate behavior.

The proposed legislation, the so-called Class Action Fairness Act, will be
taken up by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, with a vote by the
full chamber expected as early as next week. Under the bill's sweeping
provisions, nearly all major class-action lawsuits would be moved from state
courts to already stretched federal courts. New procedural hurdles and
backlogs would be destined to delay or deny justice in many cases, and to
discourage plaintiffs and plaintiffs' lawyers from pursuing legitimate
claims in the first place.

The proposed lunge to federal courts is so extreme that cases would be
removed to federal courts even when a vast majority of the plaintiffs were
from one state, the claimed injuries occurred in the state and involved
possible violations of state law, and the principal defendant had a
headquarters elsewhere but did substantial business in the state.

In a revealing but disappointing move last year, the measure's proponents
rejected a balanced compromise that would have broadened federal
jurisdiction while preserving the role of state courts in cases that are
more local than national in flavor. Despite some useful provisions aimed at
genuine abuses, the bill would reduce the accountability of corporations
that violate laws protecting employees, consumers and the environment.

The measure died in the Senate at the close of the last session. But with
President Bush now actively campaigning for its passage, the juggernaut may
be unstoppable, particularly since some key Democrats, like Senators Charles
Schumer of New York and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, switched sides last
year to back the bill in exchange for some modest revisions. The new
Judiciary Committee chairman, Senator Arlen Specter, should at least be
willing to entertain a handful of improving amendments. The most crucial
would fix the bill's Catch-22: plaintiffs filing class-action suits could be
refused a hearing in state court if they came from several different states,
and then bounced out of federal court because their complaint called for
applying the laws of multiple states.

The ability of ordinary citizens with similar injuries to band together to
take on powerful corporate interests by utilizing the mechanism of
class-action lawsuits is one of the shining aspects of the nation's civil
justice system. That reality tends to be overlooked amid all the overwrought
spinning by the president and others who are trying to drum up concern about
a litigation "crisis" and to pressure Congress to usurp proper state
authority and weaken important protections for ordinary Americans.

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