Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, what is being overlooked here is we are talking about a mechanism that encourages reasonable settlements of lawsuits by imposing risks on all the parties in the case. And we limit that risk for those who talk about the deep pockets. Nobody has to pay the other side's attorneys' fees whether the other side is the very poor person or the other side is General Motors or whoever. No one has to pay them any more than they pay their own attorney. What we are doing here is creating incentives for parties to settle cases that should be settled by letting them know that there is a risk to not settling it and creating reasonable behavior on the part of parties. If we accept the Berman amendment, we will have lost all that effort to discourage lawsuits from going to trial in cases and adding to the cost of litigation in this country. I urge opposition to this amendment.”