Blake Farenthold: “I agree with Mr. Cohen 100 percent that the victims of terrorism deserve compensation from those who perpetrated the…”

“I agree with Mr. Cohen 100 percent that the victims of terrorism deserve compensation from those who perpetrated the acts of terror. However, I oppose this amendment because it denies the victims of terrorism the protections that the bill would otherwise afford them. If this amendment is adopted, it would result in less compensation for the most deserving victims in class action lawsuits. Under the base bill, the most severely injured victims of terrorism would have their own day in court, and they would be compensated to the maximum extent because their entire class would consist of significantly injured members. Under the base bill, the most significantly injured will not have their compensation reduced by the cost of weeding out from the class the significantly less injured or uninjured. But if this amendment were adopted, huge numbers of uninjured or less significantly injured victims of terrorism would be allowed into the class and be able to siphon off for themselves the limited resources that may be available to compensate those most injured. That is not right and it is not fair, but that is what this amendment would allow. {time} 1030 To recap, thed purpose of a class action is to provide a fair means of evaluating similar claims, not to provide a means of artificially inflating the size of a class to extort a larger settlement value.…”