Jim Sensenbrenner: “H.R. 1038, the Multidistrict Litigation Restoration Act of 2005, reverses the effect of a 1998 Supreme Court case…”

“H.R. 1038, the Multidistrict Litigation Restoration Act of 2005, reverses the effect of a 1998 Supreme Court case commonly referred to as ``Lexecon,'' which has hampered the Federal court system from adjudicating complex, multidistrict cases that are related by a common fact situation. Just as importantly, the bill functions as a technical correction to a related ``disaster litigation'' provision that was incorporated in the Department of Justice Authorization Act, which Congress passed in 2002. A little background is in order at this point. During the 107th Congress, I authored legislation to address the Lexecon and disaster litigation problems. As passed under suspension by the House, my bill, H.R. 860, accomplished two goals: First, the bill reversed the effect of the Lexecon case which dealt with the authority of a specially designated U.S. district court to handle complex multidistrict cases consolidated for trial. Pursuant to the decision, the court known as the ``transferee'' court could retain Federal and State cases only for pretrial matters, but not the actual trials themselves. H.R. 860 simply codified existing practice of the preceding 30 years by allowing the transferee court to retain jurisdiction for the purpose of determining liability and punitive damages, or to refer the cases back to those courts in which the cases were originally filed. This feature streamlines adjudication and enables the transferee court to induce the parties to settle.…”