Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to H.R. 1927, the so-called Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act. In 2013, in Butler v. Sears, Judge Posner of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals spoke critically of the commonality in damages requirement found in this bill. He said that ``the fact that damages are not identical across all class members should not preclude class certification. Otherwise defendants would be able to escape liability for tortious harms of enormous aggregate magnitude but so widely distributed as not to be remediable in individual suits.'' The court found that such a requirement ``would drive a stake through the heart of the class action device.'' Furthermore, Mr. Chair, the bill includes the so-called FACT Act, which would have a devastating impact on workers exposed to asbestos. In the last few decades, thousands of workers in my district have developed asbestosis, lung cancer, and mesothelioma because of asbestos exposure that occurred between the 1940s and 1970s. This exposure was inflicted upon many victims by corporations, such as one a New Jersey court found to have ``made a conscious, cold- blooded business decision, in utter flagrant disregard of the rights of others, to take no protective or remedial action.'' That is the kind of business that will benefit from the bill. The victims don't want it.…”