US Senate panel OKs bill restricting class actions
Date: 14-Apr-03
Country: USA
Author: Peter Kaplan
Lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 11-7, along mostly partisan lines, to send the class-action bill to the full Senate.
"I think it will go a long way towards resolving the conflicts in our (legal) system," committee chairman Orrin Hatch said after the vote.
The bill, long promoted by U.S. business lobbyists, is designed to stop class-action lawyers from pursuing cases that critics say enrich themselves but do little for consumers. It would block many class-action suits from being heard in state courts, funneling them instead to more conservative federal courts.
Hatch said it's still unclear whether Republicans will be able to muster the 60 votes needed to overcome a procedural move by opponents to block the bill.
The bill was approved last year by House lawmakers, but stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee. It's expected to gain easy approval again this year in the House.
A lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said afterward that supporters need to win over about a half dozen more votes in order to win approval in the Senate.
"I think we're close to 60," said Stanton Anderson, the chamber's chief legal officer.
Two Democrats on the committee - Sens. Dianne Feinstein, of California, and Herb Kohl, of Wisconsin - voted to go along with the bill after Republicans agreed to a compromise that would tone down some of the restrictions on class-action suits.
The amendment would, among other things, allow a class action case to remain in state court if more than two-thirds of the plaintiffs were from the same state as the primary defendant in the case.
"It will force truly state cases to stay in state courts while allowing truly national cases to go to federal court," Feinstein told the committee.
But most Democrats vowed to continue fighting the changes.
"This legislation would make it harder for citizens to protect themselves against violations of state civil rights, consumer, health, and environmental protection laws by forcing these cases out of convenient state courts into federal courts, with new barriers and burdens on plaintiffs," Sen. Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said during committee meeting on Thursday.
Leahy said the bill would allow "polluters and other bad actors responsible for environmental damages to avoid accountability in court."
The committee voted down a series of other amendments proposed by Democrats, including some that would have exempted cases against tobacco companies, gun manufacturers, as well as those involving civil rights and state environmental laws.
The amendments were introduced by Democrats on the committee and underscored their argument that the legislation was designed to insulate "special interests" from liability.
But Hatch and other Republicans disagreed. They have accused Democrats of doing the bidding of influential trial lawyers.
"I just don't think we should be carving out whole industries," Hatch said in arguing against the amendments.