Feinstein, Boxer Blast Liability Cap Deal

California’s two senators led an attack Tuesday on a White House-brokered deal to limit damage awards in product liability cases, arguing that gun manufacturers must not be granted such protection.

The strong opposition by Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, who generally support President Clinton’s domestic agenda, threatens to undermine an 18-monthlong effort by the White House and Senate proponents of product liability reform to reach a compromise on what has been a top GOP priority.

The new proposal, which has been approved by Clinton and is being debated in the Senate, would cap at $250,000 the amount small businesses must pay in punitive damages for marketing defective products--including firearms.

But reflecting the increasing resonance of the gun issue in California, Boxer and Feinstein, along with anti-gun activists, said they are seeking to ensure that gun makers become fully vulnerable to product liability lawsuits and find themselves as embattled as tobacco manufacturers because of such legal actions.

Feinstein said: “I’m very concerned that if this bill passes in its present form, it would limit product liability suits against gun makers and sellers at the very time we are seeing such efforts prove so successful in the battle against smoking tobacco.”

Business interests for decades have sought legislation to curb product liability and personal injury lawsuits. And the much ballyhooed House Republican campaign manifesto in 1994, the “contract with America,” listed “common sense legal reform” as a top goal.

Two years ago, the GOP-dominated Congress passed a far-reaching product liability bill. But Clinton vetoed the measure, saying that it was tilted against victims of defective products.

Since then, White House officials have worked to develop a less controversial bill with the Senate’s chief proponents of product liability reform: Slade Gorton (R-Wash.) and John D. “Jay” Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.).

While the bill that Clinton vetoed would have capped punitive damages at $250,000 for all businesses, the current version would confer such a lid only on businesses that employ fewer than 25 people and have annual revenues of less than $5 million.

However, the measure specifically exempts from the cap manufacturers of tobacco products and silicone implants.

Boxer, Feinstein and several other Democratic senators said that handgun makers--no matter what their size--also should be exempted from the benefits of a limit on punitive damages. Feinstein and Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) have prepared an amendment to that effect.

But Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) told reporters Tuesday that he is “not inclined to allow” such a proposal.

Torricelli indicated at a subsequent news conference attended by Feinstein, Boxer and gun-control advocates that such a move by Lott probably would lead to an attempt by Democrats to kill the underlying legislation by filibuster. Although Republicans outnumber Democrats in the Senate, 55 to 45, it takes 60 votes to defeat a filibuster.

Without the Feinstein-Torricelli amendment, Boxer said: “This bill is a travesty, a complete travesty.”

Even as the White House found itself at odds with gun-control forces on the product liability bill, it will seek today to buttress its credentials on the firearms issue by announcing a new effort aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of children.

Clinton plans to issue federal rules requiring all licensed gun dealers to post signs informing purchasers of their responsibility to keep the weapons out of children’s hands, said Rahm Emanuel, senior advisor to the president. The signs--in all 200,000 dealerships nationwide--would warn new gun owners of the potential penalties for allowing children access to their weapons--up to 10 years in prison.

Times staff writer Elizabeth Shogren contributed to this story.