Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, with great deference and respect to my friend and colleague, the ranking member, this amendment would subject certain class members to unfair treatment and, thus, should be rejected. First, the bill's provisions on type and scope of injury only apply to proposed classes ``seeking monetary relief for personal injury or economic loss.'' Insofar as civil rights cases do not seek money damages, they are completely unaffected by the bill and would proceed just as they do today. However, if money damages are sought by a proposed class, then, of course, they should be subject to the procedures in the bill. The purpose of a class action is to provide a fair means of evaluating like claims, not to provide a means of artificially inflating the size of a class to extort a larger settlement value. Exempting a subset of money damage cases from the bill, as this amendment would do, would serve only to incentivize the creation of artificially large classes to extort larger and unfair settlements from innocent parties for the purpose of disproportionately awarding uninjured parties. Any claims seeking monetary relief for personal injury or economic loss should be grouped in classes in which those who are the most injured receive the most compensation.…”