April 24, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD— SENATE S5595 

wishes to speak, so I will keep my remarks brief. Let me conclude by stating the reasons we must pass product 

liability reform this year after all of 

these years. 

Under our current system, injured 

consumers often find it impossible to 

get just and prompt resolution. Just as 

frequently, blameless manufacturers 

are forced to spend thousands of dollars 

on baseless lawsuits. The system frequently allows negligent companies to 

avoid penalties and even rewards 

undeserving plaintiffs. 

Product liability law should deter 

wasteful suits and discipline culpable 

practices, but not foster hours of waste 

and endless, endless, endless litigation. 

The adverse effect of having a hodgepodge of rules is severe for everyone. In 

fact, is a rather major fact in American 

life, I might add. 

Injured persons and those who make 

products alike face a 55-unit roulette 

wheel when it comes to determining 

rights and responsibilities. The results 

hurt everyone. 

Injured persons have testified that 

they may be unable to obtain needed 

medical devices for their continued 

health and well-being, and there is a 

lot of very powerful testimony on that 

front. Manufacturers have indicated 

that good and useful products are not 

placed on the market. The Brookings 

Institution has documented many instances where safety improvements 

were not made because of fears about 

uncertainties in our legal system, 

which brings up the sort of fascinating 

concept that manufacturers will decline to improve a product for fear that 

that lends the implication that the 

product that they previously had was 

somehow insufficient. 

It is now a fact of life in many places 

where they simply, therefore, do not 

improve the product so as not to make 

themselves liable to that interpretation, all of which, of course, is absolutely ridiculous. Included in the 

Brookings discussion were, for example, built-in child seats and air bags. 

As I have studied this complex area, 

I found incentives for preventing accidents are often not in the right place. 

In formulating our bill, we have striven 

to place incentive on the person who 

can best prevent an injury. This is a 

matter that has not been given adequate attention during past debates, 

but given the opportunity to carefully 

study our bill, Senators, I believe, will 

see that care and thought has been invested to assure that no wrongdoer 

goes unpunished and that positive 

prosafety behavior is encouraged. 

For all of these reasons I very much 

look forward to our debate. I welcome 

the criticisms, the insights, and the 

suggestions for improvements that I 

am sure our colleagues will contribute 

during the process of this debate. 

I yield the floor. 

TRAGEDY IN OKLAHOMA—THE 

LESSONS FOR THE FUTURE 

Mr. DEWINE. Mr. President, I rise 

today to express on my own behalf, and 

on behalf of the people of the State of 

Ohio, our deepest sympathy with and 

for the people of the State of Oklahoma 

as they cope with the devastating tragedy that took place last Wednesday. 

Our hearts go out to victims and the 

victims’ families. No one, Mr. President, could watch yesterday’s memorial service and see the pictures of the 

victims, the pictures of the children, 

without a lump in their throat or having to turn away from the screen. 

Mr. President, I want to congratulate 

the rescue workers and all the volunteers, as well as the police—both the 

Federal Bureau of Investigation and 

the local police officers—who have 

proven to a concerned America that we 

will, in fact, fight back against terrorism. 

Mr. President, when Oklahoma State 

trooper Charlie Hanger arrested one of 

the suspects in Oklahoma, he was acting on behalf of all Americans. He did 

not know at the time, of course, that 

he was arresting a terrorist. He was 

simply doing his job, the job that he 

does day in and day out. 

He pulled over a motorist apparently 

for suspicion of speeding. The motorist 

said he was driving cross-country—but 

the officer noticed the driver had not 

gotten comfortable the way most 

cross-country drivers do. He still had 

his jacket on. He did not have any luggage. 

Mr. President, noticing details like 

that is the very heart of good police 

work. When the motorist leaned over, 

the policeman saw the bulge of a concealed weapon and at that point arrested him. 

Officer Hanger brought in the suspicious motorist. Subsequently, it 

turned out that the man he arrested for 

carrying a concealed weapon was one of 

the most wanted individuals in America. All in a day’s work. 

That, Mr. President, is really what 

police work is. It is not glamorous. In 

fact, many times it is downright laborious, boring. To get that one terrorist, 

it takes thousands of police chasing 

down thousands of leads. Most of the 

leads do not go anywhere, but they all 

have to be pursued so that ultimately 

the guilty can be captured. I am sure, 

Mr. President, in the days since this 

tragedy occurred, thousands and thousands of police officers thousands of 

thousands of different times across this 

country have analyzed what they were 

doing and tried to identify the composite picture and have done things 

that they do in their good police work, 

things that in most cases turn out not 

to lead anywhere, but they know that 

they have to do that. 

Mr. President, the pursuit of the suspects in the Oklahoma City bombing 

proves the immense value of hard work 

and patience in American police work. 

It also proves the awesome importance 

of technology in the war against terrorism and other kinds of crime. 

Technology and good police work 

have really been the key to making the 

progress that has been made thus far in 

solving the mystery of this horrible 

tragedy. Federal agents recovered a 

confidential vehicle identification 

number from a fragment of a truck 

found at the bombing scene. This number led the FBI to a Ryder truck rental 

office in Junction City, KS—and that is 

where the composite pictures of the 

suspects were made. 

Mr. President, we need to do everything we can at the Federal level to 

promote the kind of cutting-edge Federal technology that makes this possible. I will be introducing in the near 

future a comprehensive Federal crime 

bill that would help hook up all of 

America’s police departments into this 

Federal information data bank. It will 

help maintain a national DNA bank to 

allow the local law enforcement officers to identify and capture sex offenders and other violent criminals. It will 

be a data base, Mr. President, that 

deals not only with DNA, but also with 

fingerprints, also with ballistic comparisons, and also with information 

about individuals who have been convicted of serious offenses. 

Mr. President, as we deal with the 

aftermath of the bombing in Oklahoma 

City, I think there are three important 

tasks ahead for the U.S. Senate. 

First, the Senate does need to increase the availability of crime-fighting technology to make this available 

to every law-enforcement officer in 

every town and every community in 

the country. 

Second, the Senate needs to take a 

very close look at how we deal with the 

entry into the United States of individuals who are affiliated with international terrorist groups. We must 

look, also, at what we should do when 

we determine aliens already in this 

country are members of such groups. 

Third, the Senate needs to examine 

the issue of domestic terrorist groups 

to figure out the best way to infiltrate 

these extremist groups and then to 

keep tabs on their dangerous activities. 

Mr. President, over the next few days 

I will be discussing my own legislation 

in greater detail. I think that the level 

of attention the Senate gives these 

issues in the days to come will be one 

factor, a major factor, lessening the 

chance of another tragedy of the kind 

that took place this past week. 

Again, Mr. President, let me offer to 

the victims, the families of the victims, the loved ones, our deepest sympathy for this horrible and senseless 

tragedy. 

Mr. President, I yield the floor. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who 

seeks to be recognized? 

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will call the roll. 

The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. 

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S5596 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD— SENATE April 24, 1995 

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, I ask 

unanimous consent that the order for 

the quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

The Senator from Louisiana is recognized. 

f 

COMMON SENSE PRODUCT LIABILITY AND LEGAL REFORM ACT 

The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill. 

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President and my 

colleagues, here we go again, back on 

the famous product liability reform 

bill. I think one of the things that 

Members do in an effort to try to get 

legislation passed, I would say sort of 

tongue in cheek, when they are uncertain about the merits, they label it 

‘‘reform.’’ We have had the Tax Reform 

Act, we have had the Health Reform 

Act, we have had the Product Liability 

Reform Act, and no matter whether it 

is real reform or not, if you call it reform long enough and loud enough and 

enough people hear it, then a lot of 

constituents will start writing and saying, ‘‘You have to be for that reform 

act that is pending in the Senate or 

pending in the House. I am not really 

sure what it does, but if it says that it 

is reform, it must be good and you had 

better vote for it if you ever want to 

come back and get reelected or speak 

with your constituents in any kind of 

civilized fashion.’’ I say here we are 

again, because once again in this Congress, the Senate is going to be called 

upon to address what some have called 

a Product Liability Reform Act. 

I raise the question at this time as to 

why we need to be doing this because, 

in fact, I think this is something that, 

over the many decades, years and years 

of our country’s history, has been an 

area that has been reserved to the 

States in order for the various State 

legislators to look at these issues and 

make decisions based on what is appropriate and proper when it comes to 

dealing with the personal injuries of 

the people who reside in their respective States. 

Now, there are some in this Congress 

who will say no, we are going to do it 

all from Washington, and we do not 

care how long the States have done it 

or how intense they have been in their 

efforts at laying out systems that 

make sense for the people of their respective States—no, we do not care 

about that. We are going to take it all 

here, here in Washington. We are going 

to do it all from Washington because 

we know best. 

I suggest just this. People in some 

parts of our Government here in Washington, and some parties here, are saying when it comes to some subjects 

like product liability reform—again, 

the word reform is attached to everything you want to change; let us reform it—they make the point that 

States are so backwards and so inefficient and so ineffective in handling 

personal injury cases, they would say 

that we are going to bring it all to 

Washington, but that with welfare reform, the Federal Government is so ignorant and so slow and so messed up 

that when it comes to welfare reform, 

we are going to send that to the States. 

They say we are going to block grant 

all the welfare programs and rules and 

regulations on welfare and send it to 

the various States—all 50 States. Let 

each State decide what is best for the 

people of that State when it comes to 

welfare programs and how to reform it 

because the States know best and the 

Federal Government is really too slow 

and too ignorant to make the right decision. But when it comes to product liability, the States are so slow and so 

dumb and do not know what to do we 

are going to take that jurisdiction 

away from them and bring that jurisdiction to Washington because Washington will do a much better job. The 

inconsistency of those positions in my 

opinion is irreconcilable. 

I would suggest that in areas where 

the States have worked their will and 

where they have done a good job we 

should leave it alone. I would suggest 

that when it comes to product liability, the phrase ‘‘if it ain’t broke don’t 

fix it’’ applies. I would also suggest 

that those who say this is such a crisis 

of litigation that it threatens the very 

legal institutions by which we govern 

ourselves, look at the facts at what is 

happening out there. Is there an explosion of litigation? Ask anybody in this 

body who would be willing to answer 

this question of the amount of litigation that says we have to supercede 

what the States have done and bring it 

all here to Washington. 

I think the facts are clearly just the 

opposite. In all State courts in 1992, all 

tort cases or cases that people sued because of personal injury in civil courts 

amounted to just 9 percent of the total 

civil cases filed. And product liability 

suits, of which we are talking about 

today, accounted for only 4 percent of 

all the tort filings in all of the civil 

courts, in all of the State courts, in the 

Nation. That amounted to .0036 percent 

of the total civil case load of all of the 

State courts in the United States of 

America—.0036 percent. 

When we read those figures, one 

might ask the question. Why in the 

world does anybody think that there is 

a problem? Why does anybody think, if 

it is that small a number of lawsuits 

being filed that represent product liability suits, that it is such a mess 

that we would have to take it away 

from the States and we are going to do 

it in Washington, we are going to make 

it right in Washington because we in 

Washington know best what is best for 

the people of my State of Louisiana, or 

any other State in the Union, that we 

know so much more about how to solve 

this we are going to do it in Washington. People back in Louisiana say, 

‘‘Senator, are not you saying at the 

same time that we do such a lousy job 

on handling personal injury product liability legislation in my State that 

you are going to take it to Washington 

but when you talk about welfare reform, Washington does such a lousy job 

you want all the States to handle it?’’

Why is it any different? 

We are talking about laws that affect 

the health and safety and the future of 

the people of a prospective State. When 

it comes to those areas I am a strong 

States rights Senator. I believe the 

rights of the States should not be 

trampled on. The rights of the States 

to govern what happens within their 

territorial boundaries should not be superseded by the Federal Government 

without a legitimate and an overriding 

mandate as to why we should do it on 

the Federal level. 

I would suggest that when only .0036 

percent of all civil cases filed in State 

courts amount to cases filed dealing 

with product liability, that it is not a 

national problem, justifying jerking 

the rug out from under the States and 

say, no. Here in Washington we are 

going do it, and we are going to do it a 

lot better than you have been able to 

do it back home. I do not buy that. 

I will say to my colleagues in the 

Senate that my own State of Louisiana 

has addressed these problems, and they 

have handled it in the State legislative 

bodies. Interestingly enough, some people say, ‘‘Well, this is a big battle between business and plaintiffs. It is a 

big battle between the people who get 

sued and the people who do the suing. 

And there are too many people doing 

the suing. So we have to pass legislation in Washington to protect those 

who are getting sued.’’ That is not so 

where I come from because I asked the 

Congressional Research Service to 

compare the legislation that is pending 

in the Senate, and legislation passed 

the House as well with the laws that we 

already have on the books in Louisiana. Do you know what they found? 

Here is the concluding paragraph. This 

ought to knock somebody’s socks off 

who is saying we should be doing what 

some have suggested. 

Conclusion: H.R. 956, which I understand is the pending bill, the House 

passed product liability bill. H.R. 956 

would be more favorable to the plaintiffs than is Louisiana law with respect 

to product seller liability. 

I repeat that again. The bill before 

the Senate would be more favorable to 

plaintiffs than is Louisiana law with 

respect to product seller liability. This 

is from the Congressional Research 

Service dated March 17, 1995. Therefore, 

if businesses say we get sued too much, 

we know we need changes in the law 

and we want more protection, my goodness. The bill that we have pending before us today on the Federal level is 

more favorable to the plaintiffs than 

what Louisiana has already done to 

limit product liability suits and to 

make it more difficult to prove damages and to recover. Louisiana has already drafted legislation. It is on the 

books. It is the law of the land in my 

State. 

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