Istook Champions Major Nationwide Legal Reform

Istook Champions Major Nationwide Legal Reform
November 18, 2005

Dear Constituents:

With my support, the House of Representatives recently passed another bill for major nationwide legal reform. It's one of many bills we've approved in recent years. This letter summarizes it, and describes other legislation I've supported to improve our legal system, while preserving every American's rights to resolve legitimate grievances through our courts.

On October 27th, the House by 228 to 184 approved the Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act of 2005 (H.R. 420). I supported this. It makes penalties mandatory rather than optional when frivolous lawsuits are filed in federal courts, and in state court cases that have significant interstate impact. Those penalties include legal fees, court costs, and other monetary penalties. The bill also restricts "forum-shopping", by limiting such lawsuits to the place of injury, place where a plaintiff resides, or where a defendant has its primary place of business.

Other reforms which I've backed include:

--Product liability reform (However, the major product liability reform bill was vetoed by former
President Clinton, and a veto override failed)
--Class action reform (which became law)
--Securities litigation reform (which became law)
--Bankruptcy reform (which became law)
--Protecting firearms makers from being sued because criminals use their products to commit crimes (This
bill recently became law.)
--Protecting the food industry from being sued because people overeat (This bill is still pending in the
Senate.)

I've also introduced legislation to correct one-sided legal fee awards in federal cases. We have almost 200 federal laws that allow prevailing plaintiffs to recover legal fees, while denying that right to prevailing defendants. I introduced H.R. 3497, the "Loser Pays Legal Fairness Act" on July 28th to correct this inequity, by giving successful defendants the same rights to recover their legal fees from unsuccessful plaintiffs.

It's important that civil justice reforms always keep our courts open to address disputes. Reforms must maintain a proper balance, not giving special advantages either to plaintiffs or defendants. My goal is to deter frivolous litigation while safeguarding the rights of those with legitimate claims.

One reason for America's greatness is that our Founding Fathers stressed the right to trial by jury in both criminal and civil matters, embodying these rights in the Bill of Rights (especially the 6th and 7th Amendments). America's businesses and America's citizens need and deserve a fair and impartial court system, free of abusive and needlessly-expensive lawsuits. I'll continue to work to help our justice system achieve these goals.

http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/ok05_istook/LegalReformLetter.html