Classless Suits

Why did a few Democrats go along on the newly signed bill placing some limits on class action lawsuits, in spite of the fact consumers groups say the limits are bad for the public?

As I have written here previously, Bush wants to weaken the judicial branch in favor of the executive and legislative. He also wants to protect the rich and powerful from lawsuits by their victims seeking redress. States Rights, a traditional conservative value, are not important to Bush if he can accomplish what he wants by having his Congress enact laws requiring cases to be brought in Federal Court instead of State courts. It used to be the other way around, when conservative racists were supported by State courts, civil rights laws were passed to make rights violations a Federal matter.

Contrary to the Bush assertion that class action suits are a great burden on the economy and a threat to [and here he always leaves out such behemoths as the tobacco industry and Wal-Mart] "small business owners" and "doctors", class action concepts were developed in our legal system in order to provide justice in an efficient and cost effective way. When many people are claiming injuries and all filing suits in a myriad of courts against the same defendant over the same alleged cause of the injuries, it works better if the suits can all be lumped together in one court to be handled all together - as a class action lawsuit.

Incidentally, class action lawsuits against a small business or a doctor, if they exist, would be quite rare, since such small enterprises would not normally generate a sizeable number of injuries, and if they did, the enterprise would probably be too small to pay its victims without going bankrupt. Also it seems more sensitive to be concerned that innocent victims of a defunct business are not going to be compensated for their injuries, than to cry as Bush does for the small business owner who injured them.

Bush disdains our "lawsuit culture". Excuse me, but the judicial system is one third of our government. Judicial is about courts and courts are about suits, methods to peacefully resolve disputes in accordance with justice where parties cannot reach agreement on their own. There have been some other methods to resolve such disputes without a "lawsuit culture" , but they are not admirable, for example, mob violence, rioting and gang wars. With Bush pushing Congress to pass laws banning or hamstringing everything he disagrees with, might we say we have a "legislation culture"? Do the rash of under the radar, late Friday executive orders, such as those further endangering the environment, constitute an "executive order culture"?

As part of his attack on the judicial system, Bush refers to injured persons "shopping around for friendly venues". In the law, venue means a proper place to bring a case, one that has a sufficient legal connection with the parties involved, and particularly a connection to the defendant, the one who did not start the lawsuit. Corporations like Wal Mart are in the business of having connections [stores] everywhere, so they have legal venues everywhere also. Defendants have the right to jury trials if they don’t trust the judge to decide what are the true facts, so " friendly venues" really means "friendly juries". Wal Mart thinks local people are "friendly customers" when they spend their money at Wal Mart but apparently become enemies when they sit on juries. That may be true if they have figured out how bad Wal Mart is, but then they would not be Wal Mart customers and Wal Mart’s attorneys could most likely have them stricken from the proposed jury for being hostile.

I think some Democrats went along with this change because they are choosing their battles and this is not as important as some others. The actual changes being made are quite limited. It only affects suits over $5 million and does not affect cases already filed. Class actions can still be brought in State court if one third or more of the defendants live in the State, and some plaintiff attorneys may be able to put such classes together to stay in State court. Attorney fee limits are only on cases where the injured parties receive coupons rather than cash settlement.

Federal courts have been considered less receptive to class actions than State courts. I think the reason for that is that Federal Courts have a very limited number of trial judges compared to the huge numbers of Judges in State Courts, and they were discouraging attorneys from coming to Federal Court and using up comparatively scarce Court time. But now that the law has been changed and Federal Courts are going to be the only ones in which some of these suits can be brought, I predict the attitude of the Federal Courts will change and they will be receptive and make use of Special Masters and Magistrates and other ways of handling these cases, demanding that Congress fund the costs since Congress gave them the case burden. Federal Judges also serve for life, so after many years of seeing class action cases against Wal-Mart, Federal Judges may become another "friendly venue" to the consternation of the judicial underminers.