In too many cases, courts award class attorneys millions in fees, but their class member clients get little or nothing. Some among us might argue quite persuasively that we should simply abolish class actions altogether - that we should heed the U.S. Supreme Court's general admonition that claims normally should be litigated individually. Others might urge that the usage of class actions or the fees that they generate should be restricted by legislation. In short, I suspect that myriad approaches to solving these problems could be developed. Experience has taught me, however, that more modest, less disruptive solutions are often the best.
Simplicity is a virtue.
That is why I wish to add my voice to those supporting H.R. 1875. Without turning the class action world upside down, it is a step toward alleviating one problem with class actions. Indeed, it simply corrects what I see as a flaw or oversight in our current federal jurisdictional statutes - the fact that large interstate class actions are generally not allowed into federal courts. H.R. 1875 would correct this illogical gap in our current federal jurisdictional statutes by allowing more large, interstate class actions into federal court. Congress didn't suddenly dream up this concept.