[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 15 (Wednesday, February 25, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1006-S1007]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. FAIRCLOTH:
  S. 1674. A bill to establish the Commission on Legal Reform; to the 
Committee on the Judiciary.


                THE LEGAL REFORM COMMISSION ACT OF 1998

  Mr. FAIRCLOTH. Mr. President, I rise to introduce a bill to create a 
national commission of nonlawyers--nonlawyers, to study legal reform. 
Nonlawyers, just regular people with a 2-year mandate to offer common 
sense proposals to reform the legal system. While I stand here, the 
Association of Trial Lawyers of America are holding their winter 
convention. It is not a week of hard work on behalf of the American 
people. No, they are at the Grand Wailea Resort & Spa, in Maui, HI. 
They

[[Page S1007]]

are spending a week in the sun learning how to sue more people for more 
things. They are learning how to throw more American workers out of a 
job. They are learning how to take a 40 percent share of more lawsuits 
against small businesses. They are learning how to run the cost of 
doing business through the roof.
  I have not been to this resort but I am sure that it is not a bare-
bones rooming house. First-class flights to a five-star resort--that's 
what you get, and can afford, when you sue people for a living and take 
40 percent of it.
  Let me say a few words about my legal reform commission. This will 
not be a typical Washington commission; it will be made up entirely of 
nonlawyers. The legal system is overrun with abuses and we need 
fundamental reform. I want to see what a panel of average Americans who 
are not lawyers trained to split legal hairs, but think in common 
sense, will do with legal reform. We have heard all the stories about 
the $2.8 million award against the lady who spilled the McDonald's 
coffee. We have heard about a $4 million verdict because a BMW 
automobile was repainted. These are well known because they are 
outrageous. The coffee verdict was cut to $480,000 and the BMW verdict 
was reduced to $50,000. But the fact that millions of dollars were 
awarded and hundreds of thousands of dollars upheld in these outrageous 
cases simply highlights the problem.
  Let me mention a few cases that did not get the same attention. A 
Pennsylvania man was fixing his barn roof and tried to get an extra 
lift by putting his ladder on top of a pile of frozen manure. When the 
manure thawed, the man fell and he sued the ladder manufacturer. Why? 
Because the ladder company did not warn him that manure would not 
withstand the weight of a ladder. Crazy? Sure, but a jury found the 
ladder maker negligent and awarded the man $330,000. This is the out-
of-control, ridiculous problem that we are facing.

  A teenager in New Hampshire tried to slam dunk--I think that is where 
you push the ball through the hoop--a basketball. He lost two teeth 
when he hit the net. He sued the net manufacturer. The company was 
forced to settle the case for $50,000 because they were afraid of a 
tort system run out of control.
  These are the types of things that we simply have to stop. With these 
kinds of lawsuits and 40 percent of it, you can afford to be in Hawaii.
  A lumberjack was killed when a 4,000-pound redwood tree fell on him. 
It was a tragedy, of course, but was it a lawsuit? His family sued the 
hard-hat maker. The trial lawyer argued that the hard hat was defective 
because it could not prevent damage from a 4,000-pound falling redwood 
tree.
  Can you imagine how thick a hat would have to be to stand up under a 
4,000-pound falling redwood tree? You couldn't put it on your head. You 
couldn't stand up with it on. But the company wound up paying $650,000 
in a ludicrous suit. A hard hat was never intended to protect you from 
a falling redwood tree. More of the same type of thing.
  I assume some of the people who are vacationing in Hawaii received 40 
percent of the $650,000.
  A Texas man who had a blood alcohol level of .09 more than 8 hours 
after he caused an accident--8 hours; in other words, he was .09 8 
hours later, so he could have been way above that when he had the 
accident--claimed that the road caused his crash and sued the design 
firm for negligence. Here is a man falling down drunk 8 hours after the 
wreck and he sues the highway design firm that designed the road. This 
was despite the fact that he was speeding and ignored the detour sign. 
The 15-employee firm spent $200,000 to defend itself and was forced to 
finally give him $35,000. So the small design firm was out $235,000 
because a drunk ignored a detour sign and was speeding.
  Not only are these facts--and the pattern--outrageous, but the 
lawyers profit from their behavior. They take anywhere from 25 to 
usually over 40 percent of the recovery. It is totally a system out of 
control: greedy lawyers exploiting the law and their own clients for 
personal gain.
  The tort system costs the people of this country more than $150 
billion annually. That is more than 2 percent of our entire economy. It 
is a huge waste, and it is going to have to stop if we hope to compete 
in a global economy.
  Mr. President, I want to see what a panel of average intelligent 
Americans will come up with, people with common sense who can look 
through the facade of these lawsuits. That is why I am introducing the 
Legal Reform Commission of 1998. And they start out with a big plus. 
There is no way they can do worse than what we already have.
                                 ______