Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I will say, with due deference to respected colleagues from Virginia and Texas, this is a misguided piece of legislation. I speak as not only a Member of this House, but also as somebody who has practiced civil litigation for the last 25 years. I have represented companies, consumers, defendants, and plaintiffs in all sorts of civil litigation; and I have done this before and after the 1993 changes that led to the current rule 11. Where I come out on it is that this really is an attack on the Federal judiciary. Yes, they have discretion on whether to decide whether there has been a rule 11 violation of in initio, but this is something that encourages rule 11 motion litigation. It encourages rule 11 motion practice, and that is why the Federal judges oppose it. The Judicial Conference surveyed the Federal judges of this Nation, and fully 87 percent of United States district judges prefer the current version of rule 11. After all, it already allows monetary sanctions for silly lawsuits. I think something of a false picture was presented a little bit earlier, the implication that Federal judges don't have the power to impose monetary sanctions. Court costs and legal fees of the so-called victims of frivolous lawsuits, that is in the current practice of rule 11. They can do that now. If a Federal judge decides that he or she thinks that a lawsuit has been frivolous and dismissed, on that basis, they can fully award all defense costs and defense fees.…”