John Kerry: “Let me say to my colleague, he has just confirmed what I said. He is insinuating that we are creating a new tort. I want…”

“Let me say to my colleague, he has just confirmed what I said. He is insinuating that we are creating a new tort. I want to make it very clear, what the Senator and Senator McCain and others are doing is taking away the right of State law, with respect to existing contract law, to be applied. They are saying that if a State allows a particular tort with respect to economic loss, they can't do it. I will be very specific about it. My provision with respect to economic loss does exactly what the provision of the Senator from Oregon and the Senator from Arizona does. We are both trying to hold on to contracts, to avoid contract limitations on liability, and not to have people move into tort. Neither of us want contract law to become tort. So we both prevent that. Here is the distinguishing feature. What we do that Senator McCain and company do not do is, we say the following: If the defendant committed an intentional tort, you are not going to void the contract law, except--and this is the only exception--where the tort involves misrepresentation or fraud regarding the attributes or capabilities of the product that is the basis of the underlying claim.”