As a consumer, I am continuously shocked by the audacity of the public statements made by our so-called business leaders. From the tobacco executives saying they do not believe that nicotine is addictive, to last month’s statement in New York by Merrill Lynch that even though their analysts publicly recommended stocks to investors that they privately thought were garbage, no wrongdoing occurred.
Now, I read in The Herald that Washington consumers should contact our senators and ask them to take our rights away. The Class Action Fairness Act, glowingly praised in the July 30 column, “Class Action Reforms Badly Needed” by Booth Gardner and Don Brunell, is a very bad deal for consumers.
According to the group Public Citizen, the act “makes it much more difficult for consumers to succeed in class action lawsuits against corporations that commit fraud and other violations of consumer safety, health, environmental laws.” Unless I’m the CEO of Olympic Pipeline, this doesn’t sound good to me.
The authors of the column make some stupefying arguments. As evidence that frivolous lawsuits are “out of control,” they site that the number of claims has grown, and the total damages paid by defendants have increased since the 1960s. By this logic, we should make it harder for prosecutors to charge criminals because have we more criminals in prison than we did 40 years ago.
Please do not buy the nonsense. Contact your senators, but let them know that they should pass no bill that limits the rights of consumers to their day in court.
z
Bothell
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