On the recordSeptember 17, 2015
I oppose H.R. 758, the ``Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act of 2015.'' This bill is substantially identical to bills that we considered in the 112th and 113th Congresses, and we have considered even earlier versions of this bill going back at least a decade. H.R. 758, like its predecessors, is a solution in search of a problem that would threaten to do more harm than good if enacted. H.R. 758 would restore the 1983 version of Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure by making sanctions for Rule 11 violations mandatory and by eliminating the current safe-harbor provision that allows a party to withdraw or correct any allegedly offending submission to the court within 21 days after service of such submission. Moreover, the bill would go beyond the 1983 Rule by requiring a court to award reasonable attorneys' fees and costs related to Rule 11 litigation. Current Rule 11 makes such awards entirely discretionary. Yet no empirical evidence suggests any need for a change to the current Rule 11. In fact, there were good reasons why the Judicial Conference of the United States amended the 1983 version of Rule 11. For these same reasons, H.R. 758 is ill-advised. The 1983 Rule caused excessive litigation.…
