Is there hope?
A year ago, CJAC urged legislators to focus in the area of civil justice on making changes to hold down litigation costs and send a message that California was improving its legal climate and was becoming a more attractive place to do business.
Little or nothing happened on that score.
But this year the Legislature got off to a better start, as far as civil litigation goes. Faced with likely defeat, Assembly Member Marty Block pulled without a vote a bill (AB 989) before the Assembly Insurance Committee that would have let private lawyers become self-deputized vigilantes and go after insurance companies to get damages and – no surprise – attorney’s fees. It would allow lawsuits against insurers by anyone alleging to be harmed – including people who aren’t even policyholders.
This is the first proposal to crop up this legislative session that would expand plaintiffs’ lawyers’ ability to sue, but it isn’t likely to be the last.
Consider: The incoming president of the California trial lawyers’ lobbying group has made one of his primary goals to overturn the state’s landmark medical liability reform law, which makes sure medical negligence victims are compensated for their injuries – but limits lawyer-enriching runaway noneconomic damage awards that threaten to close community clinics.
Plaintiffs’ lawyers in previous years have worked hard to crush consumers’ right to settle their disputes in arbitration, a less costly, quicker, and efficient method of resolving disputes.
They have fought against any efforts to reform California’s vague class action rules – the same rules that prompt business leaders to rank the state near the bottom nationally in class action law fairness. Our association has in recent sessions unsuccessfully sponsored two bills to fix this problem.
On Wednesday, the Governor announced he is proposing another class action reform proposal, along with other changes to bring balance to a system now tilted against businesses and individual – and at times even government – defendants.
Over the past decade, plaintiffs’ lawyers, their law firms, and their political action committees have poured at least $33 million in political money into California campaigns, seeking to elect candidates who will support their simple agenda of finding more ways to sue more people.
The plaintiff lawyer industry is noteworthy for not cutting back or leaving the state in this recession. In fact, California has become a destination for big-name asbestos firms drawn here by our plaintiff-friendly asbestos litigation rules and recently-enacted legal reforms in other states.
Now legislators should go on the offensive and start enacting laws that improve the legal climate and produce jobs for their constituents.