After embracing two GOP bills aimed at reshaping the legal system, the House took up Thursday the package's central provision: a measure that would make it harder for consumers to win product liability damages.
The hotly contested bill would establish a national uniform set of laws on product liability, pre-empting state laws. It also would limit punitive damages awarded in the vast majority of state and federal civil lawsuits, not just product liability suits, to $250,000 or three times the economic damages, which-ever is greater.As lawmakers have debated the three "Contract With America" legal measures this week, a fierce lobbying battle by business, consumer and legal groups has swirled around them.
American business has unsuccessfully come to Congress for more than a decade with appeals to limit product liability awards and punitive damages in lawsuits. Now, with Republicans in control, business sees a chance for victory and has pulled out all lobbying stops.
Consumer groups and the nation's 60,000 trial lawyers oppose the legislation, saying it would deprive ordinary citizens of legal redress if they are harmed by dangerous products and would usurp states' rights. The trial lawyers contribute millions of dollars to Democratic candidates.
"For too long this nation has capitulated to the power of Ralph Nader and the trial lawyers," Rep. John Linder, R-Ga., said Thursday on the House floor.
Rep. Joseph Moakley, D-Mass., retorted that the bill would "give Wall Street a handout at the expense of Main Street."
"Let's look at the people represented by the trial lawyers: the elderly, the women, middle-income Americans," Moakley said.
The Clinton administration has called the Republican proposals unfair to consumers.
Attorney General Janet Reno said the administration looks forward to working with the Senate when the revisions are taken up in that body. She particularly attacked a related measure passed Tuesday that could make those who bring losing lawsuits and even some successful lawsuits pay the legal costs of their opponents.
Reno said this fee-shifting measure "would give advantages to corporations with a lot of money who could . . . outspend an average citizen who wanted access to our courts. I think it's very important that we make sure that . . . a large corporation can't keep the middle class of America out of court."
But proponents say the product liability measure is needed to free business from a patchwork of state laws and to stem the growth of court-clogging lawsuits.
"This is a historic debate," Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said Wednesday night. "Lawsuit abuse saps our economy, eliminates jobs . . . pits neighbor against neighbor, injures our country's global competitiveness."
Rep. Martin Hoke, R-Ohio, said, "This is a genuinely pro-consumer bill. It may be anti-trial lawyer, but it is clearly pro-consumer."
Countered Oregon Democrat Rep. Peter DeFazio: "If you think this bill is pro-consumer, you've stepped through the looking glass. Is it pro-consumer to pre-empt every jury in every state in America? This sticks it to average Americans again."