Political Quotes

“I think a few brief moments in outlining what this bill does and what it does not do may be particularly in order at this stage in the debate. If we were to take at face value what we have heard from my distinguished colleague from South Carolina, coupled with his colleagues from Massachusetts and California, we would entirely lose sight of the fact that nothing in this bill limits in any respect the ability of any individual to recover a verdict in any court for all of the actual damages suffered by that individual as a result of what a jury may determine to have been a defective product. Let me repeat that. The Presiding Officer, if he is injured by a defective product, will recover in the future, as he has in the past, all of his actual and provable damages. Obviously, there will be a difference in those damages from one person to another, even with similar injuries. Second, Mr. President, nothing in this bill limits the ability of an injured person to recover as a result of a jury verdict all of the damages that jury may attribute to pain and suffering or to noneconomic damages. I find the argument of the Senator from South Carolina particularly curious. He says this is a terrible bill because an executive making $2 million a year can recover more than someone making the minimum wage. Mr. President, that seems to me to be an argument that we ought to impose caps, caps that we have not imposed.”