Blake Farenthold: “This amendment should be defeated because it essentially guts the bill. The bill requires that class action members…”

“This amendment should be defeated because it essentially guts the bill. The bill requires that class action members share the same scope of injury, which is intended to prevent the certification of grossly overbroad class action lawsuits that include members with wildly varying injuries. The ordinary meaning of scope in the dictionary is the range of a relevant subject. Judges are certainly capable of determining the relevant range of injuries that would make class members suitably typical of one another. {time} 1115 The base bill uses the word ``scope'' to make clear that all class members do not need to have suffered the same type of injury to the exact same extent, but they still must demonstrate they have suffered the same range of injuries as determined by the court. This amendment also strikes the term ``economic loss'' from the bill. The base bill defines the scope of class actions covered by the bill as those involving claims for monetary relief for personal injury or economic loss. Economic loss is defined by Black's Law Dictionary as ``a monetary loss, such as lost wages or lost profits.'' In a products liability suit, the economic loss includes the cost of repair or replacement of defective property as well as commercial loss for the property's inadequate value and consequential loss of profits or use. These sorts of claims should also be covered under the bill because they are claims for monetary relief.…”