Ed Markey: “the Common Sense Product Liability Legal Reform Act is an interesting title for this bill. I suppose the Republican…”

“the Common Sense Product Liability Legal Reform Act is an interesting title for this bill. I suppose the Republican majority decided to put common sense into the title because it is so clearly absent from the rest of the bill. This legislation would take away the rights of working American families to meaningfully punish huge corporations that put faulty and sometimes deadly products onto the market and hurt American families. Eliminating such protections would give product manufacturers or sellers a green light to cut dangerous corners, to reap higher profits. The result? More deadly products like the Dalkon Shield, exploding Ford Pintos, flammable children's pajamas, defective heart valves and other nightmares that cause serious injury or death. Now, interestingly, these cases are only 1 percent of the cases. Thirty-three percent of the cases in the courts are businesses suing other businesses. And the National Law Journal, looking into 12,000 cases that have gone on for more than 3 years in Federal court, came to the conclusion that almost all of them were businesses suing other businesses.”