Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, this is, I believe, a very good model for handling the problem we have in this country with frivolous lawsuits, fraudulent lawsuits, and the fact that so many people are forced in the courts to defend cases that do not have merit and have to expend a great deal of money to do so. The effect here will be to set a model that the State legislatures can look at to apply in the State courts. This only applies in diversity cases in the U.S. district courts. Earlier there was mention by one of the parties on the other side regarding the effect on civil right cases. This does not apply in Federal question cases, only on diversity cases in Federal court. Diversity cases make up about 20 percent of the Federal docket, and the Federal docket amounts to about 5 percent of all the lawsuits brought in the country. So this will be a good test of whether the Congress has come up with a way to provide incentives for parties to be reasonable when they bring lawsuits. We do not want anybody in this country who has a meritorious claim not to bring that claim in a State or Federal court as they deem appropriate. But we want them to do so after they have fully evaluated the merits of a case. We do not want them to do so if their purpose is fraud; we do not want them to do so if the purpose is to be frivolous.”