Political Quotes

“I am also interested in finding ways to encourage more reasonableness in litigation and to encourage more settlement of cases. I think that is the intent of the amendment of the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Gekas], but quite frankly--and also let me say that we will find out, if this passes and becomes law, and despite all the apocalyptic statements of many on the other side, this applies to about 1 or 2 percent of all the civil litigation in this country, so we are going to find out, without endangering all those rights, whether or not this does work. But if it does, then I think we answer one of the objections they have by not taking the Gekas procedure and splitting the difference between the two parties, wherever they end up, and saying that, for example, the plaintiff last offered $100,000, and the defendant last offered $50,000, putting it at $75,000, so that if the plaintiff gets $75,001, the plaintiff wins and pays--the defendant pays attorney fees. If the plaintiff gets $74,999, the plaintiff wins but pays the defendant's attorney fees. Their objection to that is that that is not fair that the winner pays.”