Political Quotes

“I have come to somewhat agree with the Senator in regards to this. I have always been sort of puzzled as why that was put in there. Of course, in original ideas on alternate dispute resolution methods, some of the States have had what they call court-annexed arbitration, and they put a penalty relative to the failure to bind on the claimant, plaintiff, when this occurs, which raises an issue that it could be a violation of the seventh amendment, of the right to a trial by jury, by saying anything is mandatory under the concept of court-annexed provisions. Previous bills, as I recall, said if the judgment that occurred was less than what the award had been in an arbitration proceeding which is a part of the alternate dispute resolution, that then plaintiff would have to pay the reasonable attorney's fees and court costs and so on. And that raised the question of whether that was causing a claimant to be deprived of the right of trial by jury. This language here has, in section 103(a)(1), that they can have an offer to proceed to voluntary, nonbinding alternate dispute resolution. If it is voluntary and nonbinding, I do not understand why you would, in effect--unless it is sort of an effort to have an encouragement for defendants, realizing that claimants would be the ones who would probably want a nonbinding, voluntary alternate dispute procedure to start in order to more rapidly dispose of their claims.”