Patricia Schroeder

So if we are looking at the two insurance companies, then the question becomes, which one should have to pay, which one's premium should have to go up, and I think it should be the defendant that should have to go up, and I think the…

Look, this bill is doing something very drastic. It is changing the entire legal system of this country as it has worked since the country began. And this bill has been written and rewritten and rewritten, and we do not even know who the…

I was very pleased when I offered it in the committee that it had a very large vote, and we had votes from both sides of the aisle. Americans value this families. We talk family values. Here is a chance to put our money where our mouths…

If joint and several is so terrible, then joint and several liability should be removed for both compensatory and noneconomic damages, and it is not. They are keeping it for one and taking it away for another, which is saying that family…

I must say this has been frustrating because we have not been able to have a debate and all the artificial time limits on here have made this all really kind of a charade. When you listen to people stand up and talk about how terrible it…

Mr. Chairman, I think the way to frame this bill is this is the Washington-knows-best bill, and, for the life of me, I cannot figure out why we are doing this. We are here upsetting over 200 years of tradition and we are doing it after…

As I stand here looking at things that States have done that make sense to me, I am saddened. When you see people saying we ought to get kingpin drug dealers that are out pushing drugs to young kids and we ought to be able to get them in…

I just find this something that is very drastic, and it really is changing the course of what we thought government was for. I thought government was to help protect the little guy from the big guy. Now we are finding out the government is…

Mr. Speaker, this whole process is absolutely ridiculous. Let us talk about what we are doing here. We are taking the tradition of this country that has been in effect since this country began, and we are just throwing it up in the air and…

First of all, there were 60 germane amendments as I understand that were not made in order. The ones made in order have very severe time limits on them, and the only thing I wanted to ask the gentleman about his analogy in prior years is I…

Yes, he most certainly is. We know what punitive damages are, and what we are doing tonight is we are putting a cap on punitive damages. Now, the $250,000 might be a lot to us, but to a kingpin drug dealer it is not very much.

the Los Angeles Times today reports that when Speaker Newt Gingrich was asked about the Democrats and the school lunch program, he said, ``The Democrats won't be happy until every child gets a Ferrari.'' Let me tell you, this is not a…

the war on kids just got extremer and meaner yesterday. We all know about the war on the lunch program and paper plates are coming in in the mail every day to my office saying please save it, please save it. But yesterday we saw one more…

I regret that the time constraints imposed by the rule precluded consideration of the Harman amendment, which replaces H.R. 988's ``loser pays'' provision with the attorneys fees standard in the securities bill. The goal of deterring…

The gentlewoman does accurately quote from the DSG report and for whatever reason, and it may emanate from my office, the DSG report is inaccurate. The language of my amendment is an alternative but not in replacement of the language…

Let me ask a few questions about your amendment, because I really think this amendment goes much further than the bill, if I am reading it correctly. The way I read the sanctions section on page 2 is that you oppose the sanction on the…

Frankly, and I mean to be absolutely candid here, I do have some concerns about the unpredictability of the settlement procedures now in the bill, but I do not touch those procedures. My amendment offers a much earlier, much more expedited…

Let me just answer what the gentleman said. Reclaiming my time, I think it is very important to point out that it sounds so simple, but we are creating a whole new motion. There is rule 11, there is a process that is already there. We are…

Reclaiming my time, I must say I am very concerned about the amendment, then, because it leaves the core of the loser pay things which I am concerned about, then it adds this other whole motion to this process, and I think there are a lot…

Earlier the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Gekas] said, I think the way I heard him, and I hope we get a clarification, but he defined as frivolous a case that the plaintiff lost; that if the plaintiff lost, by definition, it would be…

does the gentleman not agree there is a great difference between costs and court costs plus attorney's fees? It could be hundreds of thousands of dollars. To call one winner pays when it does not include attorney's fees is not quite the…

This amendment simply says in conformity with the existing bill where you have a bad suit, one that is clearly frivolous and brought in bad faith, we are empowering with this procedure a Federal judge to recognize that the suit is…

I do not profess to be a water lawyer, I only figure that the Colorado Water Congress who follows this very carefully, would interpret it differently, and feels that because our State declares a water right to be a property right under…

I think unless we pass my amendment, the taxpayer is going to be in the tub for a tremendous amount of money. Because what we forget is very often what the Federal Government is doing also increases the value of land by a significant…

I am concerned about the Colorado River Compact. What effect does this have on that? Does this have an effect on things like the Colorado River Compact, which has been around for a very long time?