Assembly OKs Bill on Courts’ Product Data
Legislation that would open court documents in cases involving defective products narrowly cleared the state Assembly on Thursday despite widespread opposition from big business.
That bill, which covers documents showing that products can cause bodily harm, was one of many rushed through the Legislature on Thursday as members of the Senate and Assembly hustled to beat today’s deadline for passing legislation from its house of origin. Among other bills that won legislative approval were one requiring all guns sold in California after 2006 to have childproof trigger locks and another allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses.
The bill by Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) to publicize “smoking gun” documents discovered in suits over defective products was the latest salvo in a decade-old dispute between big business and trial lawyers, two of the most powerful special interests in the state.
Erin Brockovich, the legal secretary whose tale of successfully suing Pacific Gas & Electric over water contamination became an Oscar-winning Hollywood movie, lent some star power to the cause. And the mounting deaths in the widely publicized Ford-Firestone tire scandal provided a powerful example of what can occur when the public does not hear evidence that a defective product can kill.
“We have a situation here where people died,” said Assemblyman Dario Frommer (D-Los Angeles), whose own Ford Explorer rolled over because of a blown tire several years ago.
Sensing a threat, business launched a full-scale offensive to derail or defang the Steinberg measure, AB 36, and a similar bill, SB 11 by Sen. Martha Escutia (D-Whittier). TechNet, a lobbying coalition of leading Silicon Valley firms, mounted a media campaign and dispatched a group of high-profile executives and venture capitalists to Sacramento this week to meet with Davis and Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks).
“It would not take a very clever lawyer” to manipulate the law to publicize reams of sensitive documents, Mike Morris, general counsel for Sun Microsystems, said after the meeting with Davis.
In response, Steinberg dramatically scaled back his bill--so much, in fact, that some consumer groups considered removing their support. It no longer applies to insurance claim disputes or financial fraud suits, among the main concerns of the technology industry, which often has to defend itself against shareholder cases it considers frivolous.
But the bill still covers the critical issue of whether documents that detail some defective products and are uncovered during the legal process should be made public. Although limited to products known to cause bodily harm, the bill would allow a plaintiff to make a case before a judge on any such documents identified by lawyers during the discovery phase. The judge would have final say.
It passed on 41-4 vote, garnering just enough support to clear the 80-member Assembly. Republicans, who were strongly opposed, abstained from voting.
Democrats and Republicans also sparred over the ever-volatile issue of gun control as the Assembly’s Democratic majority squeaked through two measures seeking to improve gun safety.
The trigger lock measure by Frommer, AB 1219, would not take effect until 2006, so that gun manufacturers could develop the safety devices. Many gun makers already have new technology, such as specially activated passwords, to ensure that their guns cannot be used by anyone but the rightful owner.
“We’re not going to be able to legislate away stupidity” leading to gun injuries, said Assemblyman Joe Canciamilla (D-Pittsburgh). “But hopefully we can legislate a solution that improves safety.”
Republicans argued the devices were far from ready for general use, and could actually prevent people from using weapons to protect themselves in an emergency. It passed on a 43-27 vote, largely along party lines.
“I don’t want to look for a PIN number for my gun when someone is breaking into my house,” said Assemblyman Jay La Suer (R-La Mesa).
The other gun bill, AB 35 by Assemblyman Kevin Shelley (D-San Francisco), would require new gun owners to submit thumbprints to the Department of Justice and demonstrate to a law enforcement officer that they know how to handle the weapon.
Most Democrats supported the measure. Some argued that a society that requires citizens to obtain licenses to fish and to drive a car should demand the same from those who want to own a deadly weapon.
But Assemblyman Rod Wright (D-Los Angeles) was a vocal exception. Wright angrily denounced the measure as unfair to minorities and the poor because the licenses would cost $30 and would require a visit to police and a shooting range. Shooting ranges have become increasingly rare in urban areas. There are none, for instance, in San Francisco.
Other bills clearing the Assembly or Senate included:
* AB 60 by Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles), which would allow immigrants residing in California to obtain a state driver’s license, regardless of immigration status. Davis vetoed a similar Cedillo measure last year, but Mexican President Vicente Fox made the bill an issue in a meeting with Davis this year, and it had strong support from law enforcement agencies and farming interests.
* AB 194 by John Longville (D-Rialto), which would allow people who have surgically altered their sexual characteristics to change their birth records to reflect their new name and gender. Opponents contend that the measure sets a bad precedent for changing personal records.
* SB 169 by Debra Bowen (D-Marina del Rey), which would limit the use of “biometric facial recognition” technology to protect personal privacy. The technology was most famously used at the last Super Bowl by Tampa, Fla., police, who scanned the faces of 100,000 football fans and compared them to mug shots from criminal databases. The “Snooper Bowl” tactic found 19 matches, though no one was arrested.
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Times staff writer Carl Ingram contributed to this story.
