On the recordMarch 9, 2017
I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, recently an independent research firm surveyed companies in 26 countries and found that 80 percent of those companies that were subject to class action lawsuits were U.S. companies, putting those U.S. companies at a distinct economic disadvantage when competing with companies worldwide. But the problem of overbroad class action doesn't just affect U.S. companies. It affects consumers in the United States who are forced into lawsuits they don't want to be in. How do we know that? We know that because the median rate at which consumer class action members take the compensation offered in a settlement is incredibly low. That would be 0.023 percent. That is two-hundredths of a percent. That is right, only the tiniest fraction of consumer class action members bother to claim the compensation awarded them in a settlement. That is clear proof that vastly large numbers of class members are satisfied with the products they purchase, don't want compensation, and don't want to be lumped into a ginormous class action lawsuit. Federal judges are crying out for Congress to reform the class action lawsuit system, which currently allows trial lawyers to fill classes with hundreds and thousands of unmeritorious claims and use those artificially inflated claims to force defendants to settle the case. Liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has recognized that ``A court's decision to certify a class . . .…
