Overkill on Class Actions
So anxious were House members to snuff out what they considered frivolous class actions that the bill they passed last month would even apply retroactively. If HR 1115 becomes law, judges would have to toss out even the claims already filed by thousands of employees and investors victimized by Enron and WorldCom executives.
The Senate version of the proposed Class Action Fairness Act, which needs but a floor vote to pass, doesn’t include this provision, but it’s hardly better. S 274 would, like the House bill, transfer class actions from state courts -- where most are filed -- into federal courts, subjecting them to new mandatory hearings and appeals intended to delay or kill the suits. Defrauded retirees, swindled consumers and patients harmed by drugs or faulty pacemakers would probably have to wait years longer for redress -- if they received it at all. That’s exactly what HMOs, insurance companies and drug makers want, and they’ve lobbied hard for the legislation.
Class actions allow people who claim similar injuries from another’s wrongdoing to join together, letting those of modest means act to protect the public’s health, seek redress for environmental damage or improve workplace conditions. In the last 40 years or so, class actions have enabled residents to force chemical companies to clean up neighborhoods they polluted, manufacturers to pay medical expenses for workers sickened on the job, and carmakers to repair vehicles with known hazards.
Certainly some lawyers file suits largely to shake out multimillion-dollar fees. What else explains recent suits by junk food addicts who claim that hamburger chains and snack makers made them fat, and those brought on behalf of small investors harassing companies that didn’t return expected profits?
The solution is not to stack the deck against worthy claims, as the Senate and House bills do. Rather, it’s for state and federal judges to hold a tighter rein, dismissing those suits intended primarily to line a lawyer’s pocket and closely scrutinizing how injured plaintiffs are paid. New rules that federal courts adopted this year and similar changes in many state courts already do that.
The pending bills are overkill, and the dozens of groups urging senators to say no to this bill testify to its mean-spirited intent. Opponents include virtually every nonpartisan consumer, environmental and patients’ rights organization, the AARP, the American Cancer Society, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, state chief justices and California’s Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer.
The Senate heeded these folks in past years when it killed similar proposals. This year, it held no public hearings on S 274. Lawmakers obviously need to be reminded why they should kill this bill again.
