Jim Sensenbrenner: “H.R. 2112 is a combination of two other freestanding bills which I have introduced. Section 2 consists of the text of…”

“H.R. 2112 is a combination of two other freestanding bills which I have introduced. Section 2 consists of the text of H.R. 1852, which would reverse the effects of the 1998 Supreme Court decision in the so-called ``Lexecon'' case, that would simply amend the multidistrict litigation statute by explicitly allowing a transferee court to retain jurisdiction over referred cases for trial or to refer them to other districts as it sees fit. Section 3 is comprised of the language of H.R. 967, which beginning in the 101st Congress has been supported by the Department of Justice, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, two previous Democratic Congresses, and one previous Republican Congress. Section 3 will help reduce litigation costs as well as the likelihood of forum shopping in single-accident mass tort cases. All plaintiffs in these cases would ordinarily be situated identically, making the case for consolidation of these actions especially compelling. These types of disasters, with their hundreds of thousands of plaintiffs and numerous defendants, have the potential to impair the orderly administration of justice in the Federal courts for an extended period of time. In brief, section 3 addresses these problems by conferring original jurisdiction upon a Federal District Court of any civil action which features four basic attributes. First, the action is one in which minimal diversity exists between adverse parties.…”