For past Congressional Updates, visit the Archives . The wrongdoers have declared war on the legal rights of Americans in their effort to win immunity for corporate wrongdoing. Clearly, this means that ATLA and other protectors of consumers' rights will have their work cut out to assure that corporate wrongdoers and their representatives are not successful in limiting the legal rights of American families and workers. This legislation would federalize virtually all state class actions, thereby overloading an already overcrowded federal docket and assuring forum shopping rights for defendants, as well as greater expenses and delays for trials lawyers and the far fewer plaintiff classes that likely would be certified. Simply put, justice delayed is justice denied.
State courts are better suited to adjudicating state claims under state law.
There is no justification for requiring the already burdened federal courts to apply state law to state class action claims. The small business liability protection legislation is also likely to come back this Congress. In addition, the bill would limit liability of all sellers notwithstanding their size. Not only would this radical measure make teachers unaccountable to parents, it would preempt the laws of ALL fifty states with little or no justification for such a sweeping exercise of federal control. The bill bifurcates remedies between federal and state courts based on the type of denial by the managed care company.