Pelosi sells out to trial lawyers again

Washington Examiner Editorial:

So powerful is the plaintiffs lawyers lobby in Congress that Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is forsaking a bill passed unanimously in the House for a more lawsuit-friendly version of the proposal that was approved with anything but unanimity by the Senate.

In the name of reforming the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), the Senate version would create bureaucratic red tape galore, while enabling the sort of class-action jackpot justice that enriches plaintiffs lawyers at the expense of consumers and shareholders. We’ve written on this legislation before, noting that the Senate version would invite all 50 state attorneys general to interpret, at their own discretion, any CPSC regulation. State AGs would then be free to sue in federal courts to enforce their interpretations (all the while contracting out the litigation to politically influential plaintiffs lawyers who in turn make generous political contributions). That provision alone makes Pelosi’s preferred Senate bill a trial lawyer’s dream.

Many other Senate provisions also are gifts to lawyers that impose burdensome new regulations sure to drive up consumer prices in myriad ways. The Senate bill would increase total civil penalties as much as tenfold, but without the House language requiring specification of the “nature, circumstances, extent and gravity” of offenses.

It allows disciplined workers to claim to be “whistleblowers” and sue for damages, while making the employer satisfy an incredibly high burden of proof to win its cases. It would also require posting on a public Web site reports of injury allegedly caused by product defects even before such claims have been checked out. (Recall the false hysteria about “Alar” on apples, then multiply it by hundreds of products and you get the picture.) In short, Pelosi’s favored Senate bill would be a disaster for consumers and businesses.

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Trial lawyers and Democrats are teaming up against the interest of Americans to make everything cost more and make it more difficult to bring products to market. They keep doing things that should be a problem for them in November, but unfortunately the effects may not be felt until it is too late.