Richard Shelby: “I offer today on behalf of myself and the senior Senator from Alabama [Mr. Heflin] an amendment to ensure that…”

“I offer today on behalf of myself and the senior Senator from Alabama [Mr. Heflin] an amendment to ensure that individuals guilty of wrongful deaths are not provided unfair and unwarranted protection by the product liability reform legislation we are considering today. This amendment we are offering was accepted last week by both sides but was excluded from the Gorton-Rockefeller-Dole amendment today. I believe that all of my colleagues will support this measure once they take time to examine its merits. It is unique to the State of Alabama. My State of Alabama has a wrongful death statute, the damages of which are construed as only punitive in nature--not compensatory but only punitive in nature. Under the product liability bill that we are considering today, along with some of the proposed amendments to this bill, people who have committed or are guilty of a wrongful death in my State of Alabama, the damages available will be severely limited. While the bill here allows for additur, the additur procedures in this legislation are cumbersome at best and possibly unworkable. Madam President, in 1852, I believe it was, the Alabama Legislature passed what is known as the Alabama Homicide Act. This act permits a personal representative to recover damages for a death caused by a wrongful act, omission, or negligence. For the past 140 years, the Alabama Supreme Court has interpreted this statute as imposing punitive damages for any conduct which causes death.”