Limits On Class-Action Lawsuits
Should states pit top pros against corporate lawyers?
NO: Sue-happy state attorneys general have overstepped bounds
ALEXANDRIA, Va. – While casting themselves as modern-day Robin Hoods, a new breed of state attorneys general increasingly are filing lawsuits that actually steal from middle-income consumers and give to personal injury lawyers.
This “reverse Robin Hood” development is disturbing because it involves state AGs overstepping the limits of their jurisdiction, and often compromising the interests of the citizens they represent to curry favor with a group of generous campaign contributors.
While a handful of states have passed reforms, too little has been done to head off this growing culture of corruption and cronyism. Those reforms go a long way toward preventing the type of sweetheart deals that far too many state AGs have signed with close friends in the bar, but more sweeping changes obviously are needed.
Consider this recent egregious case:
In Rhode Island, AG Patrick Lynch retained the South Carolina firm of Motley Rice to file a public nuisance suit against three leading U.S. paint manufacturers for “contributing” to the state’s higher-than-average rate of lead poisoning in children. Health experts link the higher rate to the presence of lead in paint chips that flake off walls in aging buildings and may find their way into the mouths of infants and youngsters.
None of the three paint companies have sold any leaded paint in Rhode Island or any other state for more than 30 years, and all contend there’s no way for anyone to determine if the paint they sold then has caused any lead poisoning.
Common sense would convince most people that the lead-paint problem can easily be solved by preventive maintenance — such as painting over flaking areas or simply removing the older paint. The prime responsibility for that should rest with landlords or residents of the affected dwellings.
Some of the lawyers who won the $246 billion tobacco settlement in the late 1990s pooled a part of their awards to build cases against other industries — often working with the attorney general of an affected state.
Critics of the practice, like Lisa Rickard of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute of Legal Reform, say the sue-happy AGs are going far beyond the bounds of their duties to benefit many of the nation’s wealthiest lawyers. The lawyers, she notes, are only too happy to kickback later with huge campaign contributions that bankroll the AGs’ bid for higher office.
Rickard, whose organization represents 3 million American businesses, says the sweeping new activism by state attorneys general “is putting employees out of work, raising consumer prices, driving down shareholder value and bankrupting companies.” In the meantime, she observes, such lawsuits clog our courts, “denying those most deserving of justice their right to a speedy trial.”
Taxpayers and business owners can help curb such foolishness by joining grass-roots coalitions seeking meaningful reform and mounting campaigns to vote miscreant AGs out of office.
Jack Strayer is an analyst for the National Center for Policy Analysis, a free-market think tank (www.ncpa.org). Write him at NCPA, 601 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Suite 900, South Building, Washington, D.C. 20004.
Originally written By JACK STRAYER MCCLATCHY TRIBUNE
