Filibuster Again Defeats Product Liability Reform : Damages: Senate blocks efforts to establish uniform standards. Bill was backed by business interests, opposed by consumer groups.

Business groups suffered a major defeat in the Senate on Wednesday when an unusual coalition of liberals and conservatives from both parties voted to block any changes in the nation’s patchwork of product liability laws.

The latest in a series of efforts to establish uniform federal standards for the lawsuits that consumers bring against the manufacturers of dangerous products was shelved for the year after proponents fell three votes short of the 60 they needed to break a filibuster that paired such unlikely allies as liberal Democrat Barbara Boxer of California and conservative Republican Whip Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming. The vote was 57 to 41.

It was the 13th straight year that one form or another of the Product Liability Reform Act had been stymied in Congress, and the sponsors of this year’s bill, Sens. John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) and Slade Gorton (R-Wash.), vowed to try again next year.

“Same time, same place, next year. We’ll be back. One of these days we are going to win it,” added Gorton.

The bill had been supported by a wide array of business interests, including pharmaceutical manufacturers, insurance companies and auto makers who have long complained that state courts handle liability claims in unpredictable ways that often raise product costs, undermine competitiveness and make insurance unaffordable for smaller businesses.

It was strongly opposed by consumer groups, trial lawyers and labor unions, who particularly objected to provisions that would have restricted the right to sue or limited damages in cases where consumers have been injured by drugs or other medical products approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Women’s groups also strongly opposed those provisions, which would have denied women harmed by such products as the DES pregnancy drug, silicone-gel breast implants and the Dalkon Shield the right to sue for punitive damages.

Although Rockefeller agreed at the last minute to drop the FDA provision in an effort to get more votes, consumer advocates continued to fight another controversial reform that would have protected gun dealers against lawsuits brought by people injured by guns sold illegally to felons or minors.

“By defeating the product liability bill, the Senate has successfully derailed the ‘Gun Dealer Protection Act,’ ” said Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center.

The bill’s defeat, added Kristen Rand of Consumers Union, is “a huge victory for American consumers and a narrowly averted disaster for victims of gun violence.”

While the new focus on women’s health added an extra layer of controversy over what has been a perennial congressional debate, this year’s fight also had another unusual twist.

In the past, the debate over consumer safety versus industrial competitiveness and tort reform was always a partisan issue, with Republican administrations siding with business groups in pressing the reforms and a Democratically controlled Congress siding with consumer advocates.

But this year a number of changes incorporated by Rockefeller and other Democrats scrambled the normal partisan divisions even as the Clinton Administration declined to take sides in the debate.

While most Democrats voted to filibuster the bill, some liberals became passionate supporters of what Connecticut Democratic Sen. Christopher J. Dodd argued was a “moderate” reform proposal that “puts an end to the game of Russian roulette that our product liability system has become.”

California’s Senate delegation split, with Boxer voting against the bill and Sen. Dianne Feinstein joining the 19 Democrats who voted with 38 of the Senate’s 44 Republicans to end the filibuster.

A product liability bill has not gotten out of committee in the House this year.