Copyright 1999 The Tribune Co. Publishes The Tampa Tribune
The Tampa Tribune
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September 23, 1999, Thursday, FINAL EDITION
SECTION: NATION/WORLD, Pg. 10
LENGTH: 524 words
HEADLINE:
Class-action suits and state courts;
BODY:
This week the House of Representatives takes up its version of
legislation that would allow the easy removal of
class-action lawsuits from state to federal court.
These reforms are touted as the means to protect
unwitting consumers from unscrupulous trial lawyers who are out to line
their own pockets at their clients' expense.
But the proposal would also
make it easier for corporate defendants that have injured the public to
choose the legal forum in which the case would proceed. The argument is that
because class-action plaintiffs often live all over the country, the
federal courts are the natural venue to oversee a case.
"Federal
courts were actually designed by the framers of the Constitution to handle large
cases that crossed state boundaries," said Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.,
sponsor of the House bill. "This measure will put these suits in the
jurisdiction where they belong."
But Goodlatte's bill targets
class-action claims that arise from areas of law that are traditionally
the province of state courts - property, contracts, torts and state regulatory
statutes - and would work a massive shift of power to the federal system.
In short, the bill is a frontal assault on the principles of federalism.
"This bill focuses entirely on the litigation of state-created rights of
action that presumptively belong in state courts," writes Leonidas Ralph
Mecham, secretary of the Judicial Conference of the United States, in a
letter critical of the legislation to House Judiciary Chairman Henry Hyde,
a co-sponsor of the measure.
We are well aware of the abuses brought on
the system by smart lawyers who have made fortunes while reaching
settlements unfair to consumers.
But why would that be any different in
federal court?
Supporters of the legislation claim state courts tend to
favor local lawyers against out-of-town corporations. They argue
unpersuasively that many state courts have neither the resources nor the
experience to handle complaints involving millions of plaintiffs.
Yet the state courts are the courts most familiar with processing class
actions, and it is the state legislatures that write the rules and develop
the policies that allow for the claims.
Indeed, there's absolutely no
guarantee that moving the cases into federal court will solve anything. In
fact, federal judges already swamped with heavy dockets would have to develop a
whole new expertise to deal with the peculiarly state questions involved
in most class-action cases. And plaintiffs would be stuck with lengthy
lawsuits taking even longer.
EVEN PRESIDENT CLINTON, who has often
usurped state authority by working to federalize traditionally state laws,
believes this one goes too far: "State policy choices about class-action
litigation would be pre-empted - a dramatic break from our federal
system's traditional deference to state choices about the procedures to be
used in their courts."
This bill would not stop class-action abuses, but
it would come at a high cost to plaintiffs, to the resources of the
federal judiciary and to our system of federalism.
NOTES: EDITORIALS
LOAD-DATE:
October 15, 1999 
