Class-Action Unfairness

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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/06/opinion/06TUE3.html?th

 

July 6, 2004

Class-Action Unfairness

 

A mischievous bill masquerading as an effort to reform

the system of class-action lawsuits is headed for the

Senate floor this week. The bill would tilt the civil

justice system in favor of corporations and against

consumers, the environment and public health.

Democrats blocked a nearly identical measure by just

one vote last October. Since then, three Democratic

senators — Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Christopher

Dodd of Connecticut and Charles Schumer of New York —

have agreed to switch sides to support the bill in

exchange for certain improvements in it.

 

Unfortunately, those improvements would not cure the

bill's core defect: namely, that it would move almost

all major class-action lawsuits to overburdened

federal courts from state courts. Such a shift is

likely to delay or deny justice in numerous instances,

and, ultimately, to dilute the impact of the strong

consumer protection laws in many states.

 

A letter to Congress representing the views of 13

state attorneys general, including Eliot Spitzer of

New York, makes this point emphatically. It goes on to

note that the bill's sweeping provisions moving state

class actions to federal courts would not only

threaten individual plaintiffs but would also trespass

on traditional principles of federalism.

 

Should the Senate measure be passed, it would have to

be reconciled with an even more damaging House bill,

which would apply retroactively to pending

class-action cases. The best result would be for the

Senate to defeat the bill and go back to the drawing

board. At the very least, however, it should limit the

damage by approving corrective amendments being

offered by Senator Jeff Bingaman and others to lessen

the disadvantage to plaintiffs.

 

No one disputes that certain provisions of the bill

address real class-action abuses, foremost among them

the collusive settlements that benefit plaintiffs'

lawyers while shortchanging their clients. But taken

as a whole, the bill before the Senate isn't genuine

tort reform. It is mostly a gift to wealthy special

interests that is mislabeled as reform.

 

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company