Miscellaneous

Congress's latest gift to lawyers?

By Walter Olson, Ted Frank, and David Nieporent

ACSH's Jeff Stier in today's New York Post:

CONGRESS is poised to pass a massive giveaway to the ambulance-chasing trial attorneys - under the guise of protecting consumers.

The proposed law [the CPSC Reform Act] would give the 50 state attorneys general new powers to sue the makers of allegedly unsafe products - and even to demand help in their suits from the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Headline-hungry AGs will even be able to sue over products the CPSC has already found to be safe. In other words, national standards will effectively go out the window, as politically ambitious AGs compete to bash business so as to win popularity for future elections.

The legislation - which the House has already passed and the Senate's likely to pass - would hamper CPSC's mission by creating multiple unscientific "safety" standards. Each AG's vision of what the latest scientific studies imply about purported dangers would prevail in a given state, rather than the CPSC's own (far more expert) findings.

All this would mean a bonanza to trial lawyers - who'd stand to make hundreds of millions from relentless lawsuits within just a few years, since each state would become a new roulette-wheel of potential jury verdicts against manufacturers. ...

Further encouraging bogus complaints, the bill would grant unprecedented "whistle-blower" protection to any employee who alleges a fear of product danger - an easy way to secure your job until your case is adjudicated.

Full post as published by Overlawyered on February 20, 2008 (boomark / email).