Slogging toward reform
Scripps Howard: Something like a dozen Democrats agree with Republicans in the Senate that class-action lawsuits can be economically disastrous -- a consumer curse, not a blessing -- and that the time has come for reform.
Other Senate Democrats don't like a compromise bill and have some parliamentary maneuvering in mind to make the going tough. Their argument is along the lines that class-action suits, by letting all injured parties join together as one, give the average man or woman a chance to hold corporations accountable when they are negligent or are cheating. But of course, the bill would not change that fact. It would mainly make job-costing, price-raising tomfoolery less likely by lawyers who sometimes get rich off these suits without the injured parties getting much of anything.
Shopping for judges
The way the system now works, the lawyers can go shopping for judges with anti-corporate reputations and may thus coerce settlements from managers loath to risk their businesses through trying to prove a legal point in an unprofessional court. A consequence is higher prices that everyone pays and a diminished economy, one in which the wealth of people in typical circumstances is passed on to the lawyers. By allowing more of these cases to go to federal courts, as the legislation would, some of the worst abuses would be lessened.