Class Action Lawsuits
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">this is a new category,<b> see tort reform</b></font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and possibly slapp
RICO?
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">primary 5/16 on pcb</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">616 capt 219</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">new cat 519 CLIMATE LAWSUITS</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">benzene leukemia cancer API FF ceo</b></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/04/former-koch-official-runs-epa-chemical-research-1136230">https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/04/former-koch-official-runs-epa-chemical-research-1136230</a></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Former Koch official runs EPA chemical research</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Previously undisclosed documents obtained by POLITICO show David Dunlap began working on the issue almost immediately upon arriving at EPA in October.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By ANNIE SNIDER 02/04/2019 </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Trump administration has placed a former Koch Industries official in charge of research that will shape how the government regulates a class of toxic chemicals contaminating millions of Americans’ drinking water — an issue that could have major financial repercussions for his former employer.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">David Dunlap, a deputy in EPA’s Office of Research and Development, is playing a key role as the agency decides how to protect people from the pollution left behind at hundreds of military bases and factories across the country.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>President Donald Trump has not nominated anyone to run the office. That effectively allows Dunlap to avoid the Senate confirmation process while overseeing a central part of EPA's work that could impose cleanup costs on companies that have used the chemicals, including major Koch subsidiary Georgia-Pacific. The paper and pulp conglomerate is already facing at least one class-action lawsuit related to the chemicals.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Previously undisclosed documents obtained by POLITICO show Dunlap began working on the issue almost immediately upon arriving at EPA in October. He had spent the previous eight years as Koch Industries' lead expert on water and chemical regulations, a position that typically includes helping companies to limit regulatory restrictions and liability for cleanups.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Democratic lawmakers and environmentalist say the prevalence of administration officials who came from the chemicals industry contributes to its hands-off approach to the chemicals, which are appearing in drinking water supplies across the country to rising public alarm. Known as <b>per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS,</b> the chemicals have been linked with kidney and testicular cancer, as well as other ailments.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Both Republicans and Democrats have urged a stronger approach from acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler — who faces a confirmation vote in the Senate Environment Committee Tuesday — but he has stopped short of using all the tools in the agency's arsenal.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Just last week, POLITICO reported the agency has decided against setting drinking water limits for the two most well-understood chemicals in the class in a forthcoming plan for the chemicals, and the new documents show Dunlap was involved in high-level meetings preceding that decision.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said Dunlap’s hiring adds to his concerns about the Trump administration's handling of the issue.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Coming on the heels of Mr. Wheeler’s failure to commit to setting a drinking water standard for PFAS, this potential conflict of interest within the agency paints a bleak picture about EPA’s priorities on chemical safety with respect to these particular substances. I look forward to learning more about Mr. Dunlap’s role in the development of EPA’s PFAS management plan,” Carper said in a statement.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Dunlap’s ethics agreement bars him from “participating in any particular matter involving specific parties” related to Koch Industries, but the agency’s ethics officials have typically taken a narrow interpretation of such prohibitions. And while Dunlap voluntarily recused himself from work on formaldehyde, which Georgia-Pacific produces, the agreement includes no mention of PFAS.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Koch Industries spokesperson David Dziok said that Dunlap worked on a broad set of issues related to water and chemicals during his time with the company, but that "PFAs were not part of the portfolio he managed."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Dunlap did not respond to a request for comment. EPA did not answer specific questions about Dunlap’s involvement in the agency’s work and his potential conflict of interest.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Dunlap's calendars, obtained by POLITICO under the Freedom of Information Act, show he participated in at least nine PFAS meetings in his first six weeks on the job, including an Oct. 22 briefing with Wheeler, chief of staff Ryan Jackson and other top political officials. At the time, agency leaders were writing a wide-ranging chemical management plan in which they decided not to set a drinking water standard for the two specific chemicals — PFOA and PFOS. That plan has been under review at the White House since December.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>While those two older chemicals are no longer used in the U.S., EPA estimates that there are between 5,000 and 10,000 similar chemical compounds, used in everything from nonstick cookware to water resistant jackets to microwave popcorn bags</b>. Industry has argued that the newer compounds are less dangerous to human health, but scientists say there is reason to worry that the entire class of PFAS compounds poses a risk. Public health advocates are pushing EPA to regulate the chemicals as a class, arguing that evaluating each one individually will take decades, if it happens at all.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The calendars also show Dunlap helping to shape EPA's approach to these newer compounds that are still in use. </b>He participated in an Oct. 31 call with career staff in his division on two chemicals, GenX and PFBS, for which they were preparing health assessments. Research has shown those new chemicals can also be dangerous, and that those dangers may be greater when people are exposed to them in combination with other chemicals, as they often occur in drinking water. Environmental groups have said the chemicals should be evaluated together to account for those risks, but EPA took the opposite approach when it released the GenX and PFBS health assessments two weeks later.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Then on Nov. 5, Dunlap was scheduled to join a call with staff scientific leads to discuss the next slate of chemicals for which they would prepare health assessments. Dunlap's former employer has a stake in which chemicals EPA focuses on: A company spokesperson said Georgia-Pacific may still be using PFAS in its products, as it has in the past, but she would not say which specific chemicals it uses. There are very few legal requirements for companies to tell the public or regulators which chemicals they use in their processes and at which factories</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In response to questions about Dunlap's role, an EPA spokesperson said, "Addressing PFAS is an Agency-wide effort with David Ross, the EPA’s Assistant Administrator for the Office of Water, serving as the EPA staff lead on addressing PFAS."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">However, the research overseen by Dunlap lays the groundwork for any regulatory decisions Ross is coordinating. EPA officials have underscored the importance of research to their PFAS work in a number of public presentations, including briefings to the agency's <b>Science Advisory Board </b>and at meetings in affected communities.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">[Exclusive: Trump EPA won't limit 2 toxic chemicals in drinking water</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By ANNIE SNIDER]</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Georgia-Pacific, which manufactures products like Brawny paper towels and Dixie cups, has not only used PFAS in some of its food packaging products, but has also owned facilities where the chemicals were disposed, creating a cleanup liability that could prove costly.</b></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">
</span></div><div><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The company is already facing a class-action lawsuit from citizens in the town of Parchment, Mich</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">.</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">, where last summer state officials discovered the chemicals in drinking water at concentrations as much as 26 times higher than EPA’s recommended limit. That contamination was traced to a paper mill that Georgia-Pacific previously had a stake in.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Georgia-Pacific spokesperson Karen Cole said the company believes that “only a very small percentage of our food wrap and related products — if any” contain the chemicals today, and noted that PFOA and PFOS were phased out of use in food wrappers "several years ago." She said Georgia-Pacific does not apply the PFAS itself, but gets paper from a supplier that in some cases has previously treated it with PFAS.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“We are currently evaluating past manufacturing practices to better understand any potential previous use of these materials,” she said by email.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In his LinkedIn profile, Dunlap describes himself as the “lead and subject matter expert” on water and chemicals issues for Koch’s entire suite of companies during his eight years there. Even if he did not directly manage the company's work on PFAS, it would be “hard to believe that he had not touched any decisions on PFAS with that broad of a scope of responsibilities," said Erik Olson, who leads the Natural Resources Defense Council’s public health work.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Olson said Dunlap’s oversight of EPA’s research on the chemicals raises red flags. “You want an independent, hardheaded scientific review of these issues; you don’t want somebody who is already taking the industry party line,” he said.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">According to federal disclosures, Koch Industries spent at least $90,000 in 2018 lobbying on issues related to chemicals. The<b> American Chemistry Council,</b> the chemicals industry’s largest lobbying group, which</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> Georgia-Pacific has worked through in the past to influence policy on toxic chemicals, spent $9 million last year lobbying lawmakers, EPA and other agencies, including on PFAS issues.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The Food and Drug Administration governs the use of chemicals in food wrappers,</b> and has approved 21 PFAS blends for such use, according to Tom Neltner, the chemicals policy director for the Environmental Defense Fund who has conducted research on paper mills’ use of the compounds. But he said the greater liability that paper companies like Georgia-Pacific may face comes from manufacturing waste that contains the chemicals, such as leftover paper trimmings.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">That waste can end up in landfills or compost that is used to grow fruits and vegetables, Neltner said.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"There's a legitimate threat there and, from my perspective, the conflicts of interest that [Dunlap] has having worked as a regulatory compliance director at Georgia-Pacific raises questions about whether he can make those objective decisions or should be recused," he said.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Moreover, Georgia-Pacific may well have cleanup responsibility for other sites like the one in Michigan</b>. During the time it operated the manufacturing plant, from 2000 to 2015, Georgia-Pacific closed a landfill that had also been used by other companies, including at least one that the company says it believes used a </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">3M-patented PFAS. The class-action lawsuit</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> filed by citizens alleges that Georgia-Pacific did not properly close the landfill to prevent the chemicals from leaching into nearby water. </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Georgia-Pacific is currently working with the state of Michigan to trace the chemicals' movement through groundwater.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Under the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> Superfund law, a company can be held liable for cleanup even if it wasn’t primarily responsible for the contamination.</span></b></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">aha this is beyond corp personhood?! // long sought class action /tort reform?</font></div><div><div>
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</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/mcconnell-vows-to-block-extension-of-boosted-unemployment-benefits-while-pushing-for-corporate-legal-immunity">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/mcconnell-vows-to-block-extension-of-boosted-unemployment-benefits-while-pushing-for-corporate-legal-immunity</a></div><div>
</div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">McConnell <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/20/mcconnell-unemployment-benefits-271661" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">vowed</a> in a private call with House Republicans Wednesday that the enhanced unemployment benefits keeping millions of people afloat amid Great Depression-level joblessness will not be extended in the next coronavirus stimulus legislation, effectively endorsing a major income cut for a large swath of the U.S. population.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The boosted unemployment insurance—which provides an additional $600 per week on top of state benefits and is set to expire on July 31—”will not be in the next bill,” the Kentucky Republican <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/20/mcconnell-unemployment-benefits-271661" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">reportedly told</a> his GOP colleagues, calling the fact that some people are making slightly more money on unemployment than they did from their jobs “crazy.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Progressives have said <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/28/maybe-pay-people-more-says-aoc-data-shows-half-us-workers-could-make-more" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">this is a reason to raise wages</a>, not roll back benefits.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ernie Tedeschi, a former Treasury Department economist, <a href="https://twitter.com/ernietedeschi/status/1262862927306133505" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">estimated</a> that if enhanced unemployment benefits are not extended, “unemployed workers will effectively get a pay cut of 50-75% overnight."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in a series of tweets Wednesday evening, Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) pointed to a Brookings Institution <a href="https://www.hamiltonproject.org/blog/incomes_have_crashed_how_much_has_unemployment_insurance_helped" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">analysis</a> showing that boosted unemployment benefits offset around half of all lost wages and salaries in April. House Democrats passed legislation last week that would extend the boosted unemployment benefits through January of next year.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Removing that support while eliminating access to food, shelter, and healthcare would inflict untold suffering and could cause widespread civic unrest,” Beyer warned. “Cutting back federal assistance at the height of the crisis would mean self-inflicted disaster, devastation, and additional deaths. That must not happen.”...</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div></div><div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/trump-says-hes-aiming-to-shield-corporations-from-legal-liability-for-workers-who-contract-covi-19-on-the-job" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/trump-says-hes-aiming-to-shield-corporations-from-legal-liability-for-workers-who-contract-covi-19-on-the-job</font></a></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump says he’s aiming to shield corporations from legal liability for workers who contract COVI-19 on the job</font></div><div>
</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Jake Johnson / Common Dreams April 21, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>President Donald Trump said during a press briefing Monday evening that his administration is aiming to shield corporations from legal responsibility for workers who contract the novel coronavirus on the job, a move that the Chamber of Commerce and right-wing advocacy groups are aggressively lobbying</b> for as the White House pushes to reopen the U.S. economy against the warnings of public health experts.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We are trying to take liability away from these companies,” Trump said in response to a reporter’s question on the subject. “We just don’t want that because we want the companies to open and to open strong. But I’ll get you a legal opinion on that.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The president claimed that his administration has not previously discussed the issue of corporate liability, but the New York Times reported that business executives raised the matter with Trump in a conference call last week.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An “issue of great concern to the executives on the call,” according to the Times, “was the need to address the liability companies could face if employees got sick after returning to work, given the possibility that workers who felt that they were brought back too soon—or were not placed in a safe environment—could sue en masse.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Additionally, the Washington Post reported earlier this month that Trump administration officials discussed including in the next stimulus package “a waiver that would clear businesses of liability from employees who contract the coronavirus on the job.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Watch Trump’s remarks:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">JM Rieger</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@RiegerReport</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">REPORTER: [If companies] have employees come back to work and they get sick will these companies be liable?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">…</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">TRUMP: I’ll give you a legal answer to that when we look it up.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">…</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">REPORTER: You guys haven’t discussed that yet?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">TRUMP: Nobody’s discussed it, no. But we will now.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Embedded video</font></div><div>
</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In a memo to its members last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—the most powerful business lobbying group in the nation—said that legal action from workers who are infected by Covid-19 on the job is “perhaps the largest area of concern for the overall business community.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Chamber of Commerce “argues the sheer number of lawsuits could overwhelm businesses,” Roll Call reported.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">“Businesses say they keep their workplaces safe,” Roll Call noted, “but the memo indicates that major corporations privately acknowledge that many so-called essential employees will get sick or die</span>.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Americans for Prosperity, a Koch-backed organization, is also urging lawmakers to protect corporations from responsibility for exposing their workers to the coronavirus.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As Common Dreams reported last week, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has been flooded with thousands of complaints from workers in recent weeks accusing employers of violating federal coronavirus guidelines and failing to provide adequate protective equipment.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Justin Wolfers, an economics professor at the University of Michigan, wrote in a series of tweets last week that “the whole point of making employers liable for risking the lives of their staff is to prevent them from exposing their staff to undue risk.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“Businesses are asking for the right to expose their workers to fatal risks with no consequences. It’s bad economics and bad policy,” </b>said Wolfers. “If this tweet sounds to you at all anti-business, let me be clear: I am absolutely against businesses profiting by exposing their workers to unconscionable risks of death.”</font></div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">bktv 320</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><span class="time" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-weight: 600; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-transform: uppercase; display: block; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><time datetime="2019-12-12" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">jANUARY 4, 2020</font></time></span><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?467133-1/the-conservative-case-class-actions" class="title" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; vertical-align: baseline; transition: color 0.35s ease 0s; outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; width: 194.391px; float: left; min-width: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><h3 style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 400; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.1em; vertical-align: baseline; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.35s ease 0s;"><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?467133-1/the-conservative-case-class-actions" class="title" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; vertical-align: baseline; transition: color 0.35s ease 0s; outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; width: 194.391px; float: left; min-width: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?467133-1/the-conservative-case-class-actions" class="title" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; vertical-align: baseline; transition: color 0.35s ease 0s; outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; width: 194.391px; float: left; min-width: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?467133-1/the-conservative-case-class-actions" class="title" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; vertical-align: baseline; transition: color 0.35s ease 0s; outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; width: 194.391px; float: left; min-width: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?467133-1/the-conservative-case-class-actions" class="title" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; vertical-align: baseline; transition: color 0.35s ease 0s; outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; width: 194.391px; float: left; min-width: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?467133-1/the-conservative-case-class-actions" class="title" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; vertical-align: baseline; transition: color 0.35s ease 0s; outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; width: 194.391px; float: left; min-width: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?467133-1/the-conservative-case-class-actions" class="title" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; vertical-align: baseline; transition: color 0.35s ease 0s; outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; width: 194.391px; float: left; min-width: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?467133-1/the-conservative-case-class-actions" class="title" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; vertical-align: baseline; transition: color 0.35s ease 0s; outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; width: 194.391px; float: left; min-width: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?467133-1/the-conservative-case-class-actions" class="title" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; vertical-align: baseline; transition: color 0.35s ease 0s; outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; width: 194.391px; float: left; min-width: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?467133-1/the-conservative-case-class-actions" class="title" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; vertical-align: baseline; transition: color 0.35s ease 0s; outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; width: 194.391px; float: left; min-width: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?467133-1/the-conservative-case-class-actions" class="title" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; vertical-align: baseline; transition: color 0.35s ease 0s; outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; width: 194.391px; float: left; min-width: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?467133-1/the-conservative-case-class-actions" class="title" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; vertical-align: baseline; transition: color 0.35s ease 0s; outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; width: 194.391px; float: left; min-width: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?467133-1/the-conservative-case-class-actions" class="title" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; vertical-align: baseline; transition: color 0.35s ease 0s; outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; width: 194.391px; float: left; min-width: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?467133-1/the-conservative-case-class-actions" class="title" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; vertical-align: baseline; transition: color 0.35s ease 0s; outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; width: 194.391px; float: left; min-width: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span style="font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Conservative Case for Class</span><em style="font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Actions</em></font></a></h3><h3 style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 400; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.1em; vertical-align: baseline; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.35s ease 0s;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span style="font-style: inherit;">Vanderbilt University Professor Brian Fitzpatrick talked about his book,</span><span style="font-style: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Conservative Case for Class Actions</span>, in…</font></h3></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Americans are not happy. And for good reason: They continue to suffer financial stress caused by decades of flat income. And every time they make the slightest peep of complaint about a system rigged against them, the rich and powerful tell them to shut up because it is all their fault.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" /></font><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One percenters instruct them to work harder, pull themselves up by their bootstraps and stop bellyaching. Just get a second college degree, a second skill, a second job. Just send the spouse to work, downsize, take a staycation instead of a real vacation. Or don’t take one at all, just work harder and longer and better.</font></span></p><div class="alt_ad_block story-page-in-content-graph-2"><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The barrage of blaming has persuaded; workers believe they deserve censure.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> And that’s a big part of the reason they’re unhappy. If only, they think, they could work harder and longer and better, they would get ahead. <b>They bear the shame. They don’t blame the system: </b>the Supreme Court, the Congress, the president. And yet, it is the system, the American system, that has conspired to crush them.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yeah, yeah, yeah, unemployment is low and the stock market is high. But skyrocketing stocks benefit only the <a href="https://www.portside.org/2019-04-30/workers-barely-benefited-trumps-sweeping-tax-cut-investigation-shows" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">top 10 percent of wealthy Americans who own 84 percent of stocks</a>. And while more people are employed now than during the Great Recession, the vast majority of Americans haven’t <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/raising-americas-pay/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">had a real raise since 1979</a>.</font></span></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s bad out there for American workers. Last month, their <b>ranking dropped for the third year running in the <a href="https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2019/#read" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;">World Happiness Report</a>,</b> produced by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, a UN initiative.</font></span></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/06/not-only-are-americans-becoming-less-happy-were-experiencing-more-pain-too/?utm_term=.156f9f93db37" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">sad statistics reinforce</a> those in a report released two years ago by two university professors. Reviewing data from the General Social Survey, administered routinely nationally, the professors found <b>Americans’ assessment of their own happiness and family finances has, unambiguously, declined in recent years.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But if Americans would just work harder, everything would be dandy, right?</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">No. Not right. Americans work really, really hard. <b><a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2017-report-economic-well-being-us-households-201805.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;">A third of Americans work a side hustle</a>, </b>driving an Uber or selling crafts on Etsy. American workers <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherelliott/2019/04/27/remember-your-summer-vacation-and-dont-forget-this/#128d6613e994" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">take fewer vacation days</a>. They get 14, but typically <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherelliott/2019/04/27/remember-your-summer-vacation-and-dont-forget-this/#128d6613e994" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">take only 10</a>. The <b><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherelliott/2019/04/27/remember-your-summer-vacation-and-dont-forget-this/#128d6613e994" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;">highest number of workers in five years</a> report they don’t expect to take a vacation at all this year</b>. And Americans <b>work longer hours t</b>han their counterparts in other countries.</font></span></p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></span><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://20somethingfinance.com/american-hours-worked-productivity-vacation/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Americans labor 137 more hours</a> per year than Japanese workers, 260 more than Brits, and 499 more than the French, according to the International Labor Organization.</font></span></font></font></font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And the longer hours aren’t because American workers are laggards on the job. They’re very productive. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates that the <b>average American worker’s productivity <a href="https://20somethingfinance.com/american-hours-worked-productivity-vacation/" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;">has increased 400 percent since 1950</a>.</b></font></span></font></font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></span></font></font><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>If pay had kept pace with productivity, as it did in the three decades after the end of World War II, American workers would be making 400 percent more.</b> But they’re not. <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/raising-americas-pay/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Their wages have flatlined</a> for four decades, adjusting for inflation.</font></span></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That means stress. <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2017-report-economic-well-being-us-households-201805.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Forty percent</a> of workers say they don’t have $400 for an unexpected expense. <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2017-report-economic-well-being-us-households-201805.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Twenty percent</a> can’t pay all of their monthly bills. <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2017-report-economic-well-being-us-households-201805.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">More than a quarter</a> of adults skipped needed medical care last year because they couldn’t afford it. <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2017-report-economic-well-being-us-households-201805.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">A quarter of adults have no retirement</a> savings.</font></span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If only Americans would work harder. And longer. And better.</font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite right-wing attempts to pound that into Americans’ heads, it’s not the solution. Americans clearly are working harder and longer and better. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The solution is to change the <b>system,</b> which is stacked against workers.</span></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Workers are bearing on their backs tax breaks that benefited only the rich and corporations.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">They’re bearing overtime pay rules and minimum wage rates that haven’t been updated in more than a decade. They’re weighted down by <b>U.S. Supreme Court decisions</b> that<b> hobbled unionization efforts</b> and<b> kneecapped workers’ rights to file class-action lawsuits.</b> They’re struggling under U.S. Department of Labor rules defining them as independent contractors</span> instead of staff members. <b>They live in fear as corporations threaten to offshore their jobs—with the assistance of federal tax breaks.</b></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last year, the right-wing majority on the U.S. Supreme Court <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/6/27/17509460/supreme-court-janus-afscme-public-sector-union-alito-kagan-dissent" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">handed a win to corporatists</a> trying to obliterate workers’ right to organize and collectively bargain for better wages and conditions. The court ruled that public sector workers who choose not to join unions don’t have to pay a small fee to cover the cost of services that federal law requires the unions provide to them. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/03/01/if-the-supreme-court-rules-against-unions-conservatives-wont-like-what-happens-next/?utm_term=.e7ab159660c3" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">This bankrupts labor unions</a>. And there’s no doubt that right-wingers are gunning for private sector unions next.</font></span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This kind of relentless attack on labor unions since 1945 has withered membership. As it shrank, <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/union-decline-lowers-wages-of-nonunion-workers-the-overlooked-reason-why-wages-are-stuck-and-inequality-is-growing/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">wages for both union and nonunion workers did too</a>.</font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Also last year, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations can <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/148492/supreme-courts-war-workers" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;">deny workers access to <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">class-action arbitration</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. </span></b>This compels workers, whom corporations forced to sign agreements to arbitrate rather than litigate, into<b> individual arbitration cases, for which each </b>worker must hire his or her own lawyer. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Then, just last week, the right-wing majority on the court further <a href="https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/440395-supreme-court-rules-in-favor-of-businesses-seeking-to-block-class" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">curtailed workers’ rights to <b>class-action</b> suits</a>.</span></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>In a minority opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg </b>wrote that the court in recent years has <b>routinely deployed the law to deny to employees and consumers “effective relief against powerful economic entities.</b></span><b>”</b></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">No matter how hard Americans work, the right-wing majority on the Supreme Court has hobbled them in an already lopsided contest with gigantic corporations.</font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The administrative branch is no better.</b> Just last week, the <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Trump Labor Department issued an advisory that workers for a gig-economy <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/business/economy/gig-economy-workers-contractors.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">company are independent contractors, not employees</a>. </span>As a result, the workers, who clean homes after getting assignments on an app, will not qualify for federal minimum wage (low as it is) or overtime pay. Also, the corporation will not have to pay Social Security taxes for them. Though the decision was specific to one company, experts say it will <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/business/economy/gig-economy-workers-contractors.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">affect the designation</a> for other gig workers, such as drivers for Uber and Lyft.</font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Also, the Labor Department has proposed a stingy increase in the overtime pay threshold—that is, the salary amount under which corporations must pay workers time and a half for overtime. The current threshold of $23,660 <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomspiggle/2019/03/21/1-million-more-workers-will-soon-get-overtime-pay/#ea7c3e650d65" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">has not been raised since 2004</a>. The Obama administration had proposed doubling it to $47,476. But now, the Trump Labor Department has cut that back to $35,308. That means <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/more-than-eight-million-workers-will-be-left-behind-by-the-trump-overtime-proposal-that-number-will-grow-to-11-5-million-in-the-first-10-years-of-implementation/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">8.2 million workers who would have benefited</a> from the larger salary cap now will not be eligible for mandatory overtime pay.</font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It doesn’t matter how hard they work; they aren’t going to get the time-and-a-half pay they deserve.</font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Just like the administration and the Supreme Court,<b> right-wingers in Congress grovel before corporations</b> and the rich. Look at the tax break they gave one percenters in 2017. <b>Corporations got the <a href="https://www.portside.org/2019-04-30/workers-barely-benefited-trumps-sweeping-tax-cut-investigation-shows" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;">biggest cut in history</a>, their rate sledgehammered down from 35 percent to 21 percent</b>. The <a href="https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/distributional-analysis-conference-agreement-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">rich reap by far the largest benefit</a> from those tax cuts through 2027, according to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center. And by then, 53 percent of Americans—that is, workers, not rich people—<a href="https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/distributional-analysis-conference-agreement-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">will pay more than they did in 2017</a> because tax breaks for workers<b> expire.</b></font></span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The <a href="https://publicintegrity.org/business/taxes/trumps-tax-cuts/the-secret-saga-of-trumps-tax-cuts/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">White House Council of Economic Advisers</a> predicted the corporate tax cut would put an extra $4,000 in every worker’s pocket. They swore that corporations would use some of their tax cut money to hand out raises and bonuses to workers. That never happened. Workers got a <a href="https://www.portside.org/2019-04-30/workers-barely-benefited-trumps-sweeping-tax-cut-investigation-shows" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">measly 6 percent of corporations’ tax savings</a>. In the first quarter after the tax cut took effect, workers on average received a <a href="https://www.portside.org/2019-04-30/workers-barely-benefited-trumps-sweeping-tax-cut-investigation-shows" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">big fat extra $6.21</a> in their paychecks, for an annual total of a whopping $233. Corporations spent their tax breaks on stock buybacks, a record <a href="https://www.barrons.com/articles/2018-record-stock-buybacks-51545361596" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">$1 trillion worth</a>, raising stock prices, which put more money in the pockets of rich CEOs and shareholders.</font></span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That’s <a href="https://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/investing/T052-S001-10-companies-new-or-improved-stock-buybacks/index.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">continuing this year</a>. Workers are never going to see that $4,000.</font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">No wonder they’re unhappy.<b> The system is working against them.</b></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Leo W. Gerard </b>is the international president of the <a href="https://www.usw.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">United Steelworkers Union (USW)</a>.</font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This article was produced by the <a href="https://independentmediainstitute.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Independent Media Institute</a>.</font></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></font></div></div></div><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1rem; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1rem; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">also scotus</font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1rem; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/fox-news-analyst-andrew-napolitano-stunned-by-kavanaughs-latest-ruling-i-did-not-see-this-coming/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/fox-news-analyst-andrew-napolitano-stunned-by-kavanaughs-latest-ruling-i-did-not-see-this-coming/</font></a></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1rem; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fox News senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano on Monday said he was surprised to see Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh siding with the court’s liberal members <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/05/13/supreme-court-says-apple-can-sued-over-app-prices-kavanaugh-rules/2918517002/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">in a recent 5-4 decision</a>.</font></font></font></p><div class="p1_5" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“One would think it is in the weeds, but it’s not. We all have apps on our phones — some for free and some you buy from Apple. So people sued Apple saying why do I pay $99 for an app worth $20 or $30. And the courts threw the case out, saying you can’t sue Apple in a class-action. You have to sue the originator of the app,” Napolitano explained to Fox News host Bill Hemmer.</font></font></font></p><div class="p2_5" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="alt_ad_block story-page-in-content-graph-2" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This morning, the Supreme Court of the United States radically expanded plaintiff’s rights to commence class-actions against deep pocketed corporations. And what alliance was it? It was the four liberal members of the court and its newest member Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing a decision that is a plaintiff’s lawyers delight.”</font></font></font></p><div class="p3_5" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I did not see this coming,” Napolitano continued. “All the indications about Brett Kavanaugh were that he was a monolithic conservative that wouldn’t even listen to the other side and during the course of the unfortunate hearings that he had, when he was allowed to talk about his political philosophy, he said I am not a monolithic anything, I listen to the facts and I apply the law. Today he and the four liberal members of the court radically expanded the rights of plaintiffs to bring class-actions.”</font></font></font></p><div class="p4_5" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Watch the video below:</font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></p></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">chevron takes lead in defense (city/state level lawsuits for damage agw) b/c exxon and others KNEW; using 1st amend defense cf drilled season 2</font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></p></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/federal-judge-says-flint-water-lawsuit-actually-can-target-the-former-governor-meaning-he-may-finally-be-held-accountable/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/federal-judge-says-flint-water-lawsuit-actually-can-target-the-former-governor-meaning-he-may-finally-be-held-accountable/</font></a></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A federal judge on Monday—who agreed that allegations of “conscience shocking” conduct claimed by plaintiffs were “plausible”—reinstated Michigan’s former Governor Rick Snyder as a defendant in a class action lawsuit by the victims of the <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/flint-water" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">water crisis in the city of Flint</a> that first captured national headlines in 2014.</font></font></font></p><div class="p1_11" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After earlier removing Snyder from the suit, brought by city residents harmed by the poisoning of the municipal water supply, U.S. District Court Judge Judith Levy <a href="https://www.mlive.com/news/flint/2019/04/gov-snyder-back-in-as-defendant-in-class-action-flint-water-lawsuit-judge-decides.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">reversed that decision</a> as she noted the plaintiffs had shown the allegations against Snyder and his fellow co-defendants “plausibly describe ‘conscience shocking’ conduct” as the people of Flint were stripped of 14th Amendment protections from bodily harm or injury.</font></font></font></p><div class="p2_11" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="fielditems" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="fielditem even" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The plaintiffs in the suit, Levy wrote in her ruling,</font></font></font></p><div class="p3_11" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">plausibly state that the Governor acted indifferently to the risk of harm they faced, demonstrating a callous disregard for their right to bodily integrity. This indifference manifested itself in two ways. Initially, the Governor was indifferent because instead of mitigating the risk of harm caused by the contaminated water, he covered it up. In private, he worried about the need to return Flint to DWSD water and the political implications of the crisis. But in public, he denied all knowledge, despite being aware of the developing crisis.”</font></font></font></p><div class="p4_11" style="font-style: italic; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="font-style: italic; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></font></font></p><div class="p5_11" style="font-style: italic; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As a result, plaintiffs were lured into a false sense of security. They could have taken protective measures, if only they had known what the Governor knew. Instead, the Governor misled them into assuming that nothing was wrong. Governor Snyder’s administration even encouraged them to continue to drink and bathe in the water.</font></font></font></p><div class="p6_11" style="font-style: italic; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></div></div></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The legal team representing the plaintiffs welcome the judge’s determination.</font></font></font></p><div class="p7_11" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We are grateful that the Court agrees former Governor Snyder should be held accountable for his role in the Flint water crisis,” said attorney Theodore J. Leopold, co-lead for the plaintiffs.</font></font></font></p><div class="p8_11" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The citizens of Flint were both forgotten and mistreated by those involved in the Flint water disaster,” Leopold added. “To this day, residents continue to suffer because of the reckless decisions of senior state and local officials, as well as private contractors, and we hope to provide a measure of justice and some much-needed relief to those still struggling to recover.”</font></font></font></p><div class="p9_11" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to a statement from the plaintiff’s legal team, the complaint submitted to the court alleged that Snyder and his staff were aware of the health risks associated with the city’s transition to Flint River water, including the risk of Legionnaires’ disease, for months before an official announcement was made and that they concealed this information from the public. Overall, the lawsuit charges that officials from the state of Michigan, the city of Flint, Genesee County, and two private engineering firms created the public health crisis and did so while making calculated decisions that “deliberately exposed” residents of Flint to the harmful health effects of lead and other toxins.</font></font></font></p><div class="p10_11" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Rather than moving swiftly to protect the children and families of Flint, the state engaged in a cover-up which tragically led to preventable injuries and deaths of innocent Flint residents,” added Michael L. Pitt, the other co-lead in the case. “Those responsible for creating and prolonging the Flint Water crisis will be held accountable.”</font></font></font></p></div></div></div></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></font></p></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> non-hodg lymphoma <b>11k cases waiting</b></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2 bif ct loss --> settle 5 bill?$</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4 key epa sci oppose current legal status, one ed imp peer jrl</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">kpfa 3/12 jess roland rev dr to chem gp; dessicant on wht and oats (kids food, ~ ca bill)</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Whitewash Bk USRTK Terry Gillam</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">40 mil lbs? to 300 m now, in rain</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></font></p></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/02/27/oil-manufacturers-accountability-project-trade-group-climate-suits">https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/02/27/oil-manufacturers-accountability-project-trade-group-climate-suits</a></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></font></font></div><div><b>Battling for Big Oil: Manufacturing Trade Group Leads Assault on Climate Suits</b></div><div>Read time: 12 mins</div><div>By Guest • Wednesday, February 27, 2019 - 11:09</div><div>
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</div><div>By Karen Savage, Climate Liability News. Crossposted from Climate Liability News.</div><div>
</div><div><b>In its fight to stave off a wave of climate change-related lawsuits, the fossil fuel industry has found a vocal and unapologetic ally in the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). </b>The 123-year old trade group represents a wide range of the nation’s manufacturing companies, but it has frequently gone to bat for select segments of its membership during major liability battles. Currently, it is Big Oil’s staunchest defender.</div><div>The group has filed briefs defending oil companies in liability lawsuits, launched campaigns to discredit the communities filing them, and has worked to stop shareholders from pressing the oil companies to disclose climate risks. In these roles, NAM has put itself front and center in the effort to keep fossil fuel companies from being held liable for their role in climate change, and from paying for the related damages that will run in the hundreds of billions of dollars to communities across the country.</div><div>
</div><div>“Taxpayer resources should not be used for baseless lawsuits that are designed to enrich trial lawyers and grab headlines for politicians,” Lindsey de la Torre, executive director of NAM’s spinoff group, the<b> Manufacturers’ Accountability Project (MAP</b>), said in a statement after Rhode Island filed one of the climate liability lawsuits last year. NAM launched MAP in 2017 as a response to the increasing number of climate liability suits. </div><div>
</div><div>Those suits, according to NAM, are a result of a coordinated campaign by activists “to disparage U.S. manufacturers with a focus on America’s largest energy manufacturers.” </div><div>
</div><div>MAP is now attempting to convince the American public — as well as judges who might hear those liability cases — that attempts to hold companies accountable for their role in climate change will harm business, said Richard Daynard, president of Northeastern University Law School’s Public Health Advocacy Institute and chair of its Tobacco Products Liability Project.</div><div>
</div><div>Manufacturers' Accountability Project logo</div><div>The Manufacturers' Accountability Project (MAP) was launched in November 2017 to push back against climate-change-related lawsuits affecting the manufacturing industry. ]</div><div>
</div><div><b>“This is essentially the PR front for the defendants in climate litigation,</b>” Daynard said, adding that MAP is also working to discourage municipalities from filing future suits.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“This is all part of a long history of <b>tort reform </b>propaganda,” he said, adding that NAM has worked for decades to reign in all types of liability litigation, including against the tobacco industry.</span></div><div>
</div><div>So perhaps it’s not surprising that NAM’s defense of fossil fuel companies has begun to look increasingly like its support for the tobacco industry in the 1980s. Similar tactics were used when tobacco companies were facing hundreds of lawsuits and were charged with racketeering by the federal government for deceiving the public about the catastrophic health hazards of smoking. NAM has even hired the same law firm that defended the tobacco industry to launch an assault on the climate liability lawsuits.</div><div>
</div><div>NAM recently named Phil Goldberg, a former coal lobbyist as special counsel for MAP. Goldberg is a managing partner in the Washington office of Shook, Hardy & Bacon, which gained notoriety for defending the tobacco industry, and is the co-chair of the firm’s public policy group. </div><div>
</div><div><b>Some say Shook, Hardy & Bacon went beyond defending tobacco companies, actively coordinating efforts by its clients to deliberately deceive the public about the ruinous health effects of smoking.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Judge Gladys Kessler, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who found 10 tobacco companies guilty of violating racketeering laws in 2006, said the company’s lawyers “played an absolute central role in the creation and perpetuation” of the companies’ “fraudulent schemes,” calling it a “sad and disquieting chapter” in the legal profession.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Even before Goldberg was hired, MAP had launched an offensive against climate suits, filing friend-of-the-court briefs and intervening in a landmark constitutional suit brought by 21 young people against the U.S. government. MAP has also submitted public records requests and coordinated a public relations campaign to discredit the municipalities behind the liability lawsuits.</div><div>
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</div><div>Sharon Eubanks, a former Department of Justice lawyer who led the government’s racketeering case against the tobacco industry, said MAP is launching a direct attack on climate litigation suits.</div><div>
</div><div>“It’s very similar what they’re doing, only the tobacco industry at least didn’t come right out and say ‘We’re going to target these lawsuits directly,’” Eubanks said. “They did so indirectly. But NAM and MAP, they’re like, ‘We’re targeting the lawsuits.’” </div><div>
</div><div>Michael Barnett, a professor of management & global business at Rutgers Business School who has studied trade associations, said groups like NAM exist to defend the interests of their industry. </div><div>
</div><div>“It’s sort of an outsourced arm of those firms, rather than doing it all on their own, there’s strength in numbers,” Barnett said. “There’s some efficiency to having one centralized legal defense that attacks on behalf of the whole industry in addition to each of the individual firms taking on these issues.”</div><div>
</div><div>No Stranger to the Liability Battlefield</div><div>
</div><div>The addition of Goldberg to MAP’s legal team indicates a continuing commitment to defending NAM’s fossil fuel defendants. In addition to being the go-to law firm for tobacco companies, Shook, Hardy & Bacon has a long history with NAM, partnering as far back as 2007 to support firms facing product liability suits. The firm worked so closelywith the tobacco industry to attack the science showing the dangers of smoking it was named in several cases along with their clients, charging them with deceiving the public by fraudulently concealing the health effects of smoking. Oklahoma’s attorney general called Shook, Hardy & Bacon an “aider and abettor” of fraud in one suit.</div><div>
</div><div>“[The Department of Justice] considered suing them and making them defendants because they were so much a part of the RICO violations we alleged,” Eubanks said.</div><div>
</div><div>“They’re not even hiding from anything, they’re just saying ‘we want to influence what’s happening in these cases the best way that we can.’” </div><div>
</div><div>She said she’s seen no evidence that MAP’s tactics are illegal, but they are similar to some of what was alleged in the tobacco cases.</div><div>
</div><div>Goldberg did not respond to a request for comment. In a NAM press release he said, “The NAM and its Manufacturers’ Accountability Project are the tip of the spear in the fight against the wave of unfounded public nuisance lawsuits targeting America’s manufacturers.” </div><div>
</div><div>Goldberg said climate liability suits get in the way of finding real solutions and “are more about politics than addressing the global challenge of climate change.” He did not elaborate on what the solutions are or how municipalities will pay for the infrastructure needed to protect their residents, costs that are projected to run into the hundreds of billions of dollars nationwide.</div><div>
</div><div>A History of Advocating for Fossil Fuel Members</div><div>
</div><div>NAM, which was founded in 1895, describes itself as the largest manufacturing association in the United States. It doesn’t publicly disclose its membership list, but its board includes some of the oil and gas industry’s most powerful executives. </div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Exxon</b> senior vice president and management committee member Neil Chapman joined NAM’s executive committee in 2015, taking over the position vacated by current Exxon chief executive Darren Woods. Chapman, who donated $10,000 to NAM’s political action committee during the 2018 election cycle, also serves as NAM’s southwest regional vice chair. </span></div><div>
</div><div>Chapman and Exxon did not respond to a request for comment. </div><div>
</div><div>For decades, the association has promoted climate denial, founding the Global Climate Coalition in 1989 and sharing offices until 1992 while the Global Climate Coalition and its members — primarily energy companies and automobile manufacturers — worked to cast doubt on what was fast becoming overwhelming scientific evidence that the burning of fossil fuels drives climate change. The goal was to change the public’s perception and cast doubt on climate science.</div><div>
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</div><div><b>The Global Climate Coalition was disbanded in 2002 after several of its largest corporate members pulled out under public pressure to accept that climate change — and the projected catastrophic effects — was an undeniable global threat.</b></div><div>
</div><div>More recently, NAM’s focus has shifted from promoting climate deception to defending member companies from efforts to hold them accountable for years of deceiving the public and damaging the climate.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Along with the American Petroleum Institute and American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, NAM in 2015 joined the landmark youth climate lawsuit Juliana v. United States as an intervenor on the side of the federal government. </span></div><div>
</div><div>Calling the suit a “direct threat to businesses,” the trade associations said the “significant reduction in [greenhouse gas] emissions would cause a significant negative effect on [their] members by constraining the sale of the product they have specialized in developing and selling.” When the court asked intervenors to explain their views on climate change, NAM quickly backed out.</div><div>
</div><div>When the liability lawsuits began — and now total more than a dozen from communities across the country and one state (Rhode Island) — NAM responded by launching MAP to “set the record straight and highlight foundations and other activists who have sought to undermine and weaken manufacturing in the United States” by engaging in climate change-related litigation. </div><div>
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</div><div>MAP came out swinging, claiming that then-New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman’s use of the Martin Act to investigate Exxon for possible climate change-related fraud was “politically motivated.” It demanded New York Mayor Bill de Blasio apologize to New Yorkers for using an outside firm to file its suit against five major oil companies and launched a campaign to highlight what it called de Blasio’s “politically-motivated attacks on manufacturers.”</div><div>
</div><div>Eubanks said that rhetoric doesn’t add up.</div><div>
</div><div>“Lawsuits are to enforce the law, to ensure that people are following the law and it takes you out of a political process and puts you before a neutral person, a judge,” she said, adding that Shook, Hardy & Bacon also does a good bit of political lobbying. </div><div>
</div><div>“They say, ‘We think these matters should be handled by legislation, not litigation, and by regulations that will come out of any statutes that are enacted,” she said. “Then they fight real hard to make sure there are no statutes that come down the pike because regulations come out of regulatory authority, so it sounds real good, but that’s wholly inconsistent with their approach.” </div><div>
</div><div><b>NAM and MAP have made a big deal out of the potential for future RICO charges against the fossil fuel industry </b>— the same racketeering laws that ultimately ensnared the tobacco industry — and contend that a conspiracy is being waged on the other side by a “group of politically motivated activists” who are “trying to take down America’s energy manufacturers.” </div><div>
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</div><div>“Right now, there are groups of trial lawyers slinking around the country tantalizing elected officials in cities and states with unrealistic promises of jackpot justice if they will only agree to sue energy manufacturers over climate change,” said NAM president and chief executive Jay Timmons in NAM’s State of Manufacturing Address last week in Houston. “These lawyers — they want to get rich at the expense of manufacturing workers.”</div><div>
</div><div>Daynard said this type of messaging is used in an effort to control the narrative around — and media coverage of — climate litigation.</div><div>
</div><div>“They have this notion that if they can get continue to get news coverage and establish themselves, they can make sure when cases are filed journalists will look, go to them and they can then get in some comment on how this is all worthless crazy stuff stirred up by ‘greedy lawyers’ or ‘ideologically driven NGO’s,’” Daynard said.</div><div>
</div><div>To try and substantiate its view that litigation is part of a vast conspiracy — and in what some say is an attempt to have a chilling effect on municipalities that file lawsuits — MAP has also submitted extensive public record requests to plaintiffs in the suits, seeking documents and communication between the municipalities and their attorneys, prior records requests that include those attorneys, certain communication regarding the defendant companies and communication between the municipalities and billionaire Tom Steyer, founder of NextGen, a progressive organization working to stem the risks of climate change for future generations.</div><div>
</div><div>When Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Kilmartin filed the first state-level suit last July, MAP denounced it. </div><div>
</div><div>Eubanks said ensuring manufacturers abide by state law is exactly what attorneys general should do.</div><div>
</div><div>“We have consumer protection statutes, we have consumer protection agencies, that’s part of what makes this country great,” Eubanks said. “You can’t just come in and roll over people with deceptive and unfair methods of competition, you can’t just lie about things without consequences and we have organizations to protect that. That’s what I find so alarming about this — the whole idea that there’s something wrong with enforcing the law.”</div><div>
</div><div>NAM did not respond to a request for comment. De la Torre could not be reached for comment.</div><div>
</div><div>Perhaps NAM’s biggest attack on liability suits thus far has been its accusations against several California municipalities. </div><div>
</div><div>Not long after the suits were filed, <b>Exxon went on the offensive, </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">accusing plaintiffs of failing to disclose climate risks to their bond investors. </span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">To try to bolster that allegation, NAM — along with the industry ally Competitive Enterprise Institute — asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether several cities and counties that filed climate suits misled investors when they stated in bond offerings that they couldn’t predict the impacts of climate change.</span> </div><div>
</div><div>A report by the former chief of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s municipal bonds division later found the municipalities did not mislead potential investors.</div><div>
</div><div>In another instance, NAM partnered with the Chamber of Commerce to back Exxon, filing a friend-of-the-court brief in the oil giant’s quest to stop investigations by the attorneys general of Massachusetts and New York. </div><div>
</div><div>New York has since filed a lawsuit against Exxon based on that investigation, alleging the oil giant for years deceived investors by deliberately downplaying the climate risks to its business and long-term financial health. The Supreme Court recently ruled against Exxon’s attempt to stop Massachusetts’ investigation, which now continues.</div><div>
</div><div>This is the first in a series of articles on the trade group coordinating opposition to climate liability suits.</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">aha: unions are collective action in the workplace/economic world, but class action is collective use of courts (legal vs economic power). both are under attack, defund the left</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14112018/crab-fishermen-climate-change-lawsuit-fossil-fuel-companies-ocean-algae-neurotoxin-fishery-closure">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14112018/crab-fishermen-climate-change-lawsuit-fossil-fuel-companies-ocean-algae-neurotoxin-fishery-closure</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">dunno if this is class action</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://insideclimatenews.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=38ec575099&e=06876ede6b" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Crab Fishers Sue the Fossil Fuel Industry Over Climate Change as the Ocean Warms</a><br style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">BY: DAVID HASEMYER</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
The West Coast's largest commercial fishing association is the latest group seeking to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for climate change as it damages lives and livelihoods.</span></font></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div><div class="content" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-c1da4e9e-7fff-7284-4319-1766e28c4a61" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Crab fishing on the West Coast has become so threatened by warming oceans that a coalition of commercial fishers has now joined the climate litigation fray with a lawsuit filed Wednesday to hold 30 fossil fuel companies accountable for losses caused by climate change.</b></font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span id="docs-internal-guid-c1da4e9e-7fff-7284-4319-1766e28c4a61" style="box-sizing: inherit;">The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco County Superior Court by the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, seeks damages on behalf of crab fishers, </span>their businesses and families, and local communities in California and Oregon.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It describes losses caused by the closing of crab fishing waters over the past four years because of <b>algae blooms in the warming Pacific waters,</b> and warns that these closures will keep happening as warming continues.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-c1da4e9e-7fff-7284-4319-1766e28c4a61" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"These changes threaten both the productivity of commercial fisheries and safety of commercially harvested seafood products," the lawsuit says. "In so doing, they also threaten those that rely on ocean fisheries and ecosystems for their livelihoods, by rendering it at times impossible to ply their trade." </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">A</span>t the heart of <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5114513-Fisherman-s-Complaint-11-14-20182018.html" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">the 91-page lawsuit</a> are claims similar to those being used by several California cities that are suing the fossil fuel industry over sea level rise. It accuses some of the world's largest oil and gas producers, including <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/exxon-climate-change-investigation" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">ExxonMobil</a>, Chevron, Shell and BP, of negligence, defective-product liability, creating a nuisance, and failing to warn about the dangers of fossil fuel products that the companies knew would result in warming of the oceans and atmosphere.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But this case is unusual in pitting one industry against another.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Because of the ocean warming brought on by greenhouse gas emissions, the crab fishing industry has been deprived of fishing opportunities, and consequently suffered severe financial hardships, the lawsuit says. "These injuries derive from rising ocean temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean generally and periodic extreme marine heat waves—the results of anthropogenic ocean warming caused by the foreseeable and intended use of defendants' products," the suit says.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Significant portions of the Dungeness crab fishing region along the Pacific Coast have been closed repeatedly since 2015, <a href="https://tinyurl.com/y8xdzezk" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">including parts along the West Coast this year</a>, according to the lawsuit.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Warming water can generate algae blooms that can cause a buildup in shellfish of domoic acid, a potent neurotoxin that is a health threat to people and an economic threat to the entire crab fishery. Earlier this month, the California Department of Public Health <a href="https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/OPA/Pages/NR18-054.aspx" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">issued a warning</a> not to eat the internal organs of Dungeness crab from the Bodega Bay or Russian River areas because of high levels of domoic acid.</font></p><h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.333;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">'It's Obvious the Oceans Are Getting Warmer'</font></h3><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Although the lawsuit does not specify a damage amount, <a href="https://pcffa.org/" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">the federation</a>estimates crab fishing contributes hundreds of millions of dollars to the economy in Oregon and California each year.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We're out fishing all the time, and it's obvious the oceans are getting warmer," said John Beardon, who fishes for Dungeness crab out of Crescent City, California. "That's bad for crabs and other fish, and it's bad for those of us who make a living on the water.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The last three years have been really hard. Our community came together and held a fish fry to help our crew members. But fish fries and disaster relief are no solution to these closures we're now seeing year after year after year."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/funding-and-financial-services/fishery-disaster-determinations" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Disaster relief</a> approved by Congress in 2018 will aid crabbers who were harmed by the poor season three years ago, but it provides only partial relief for fishers like Beardon.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The crab fleet is responsible for thousands of jobs on the boats and thousands more in the local businesses that support the fishery, according to Noah Oppenheim, the Pacific Coast Federation's executive director.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We're taking a stand for the captains and crew, their families, and the business owners that support the fleet," he said. "The fossil fuel companies named in our lawsuit knowingly caused harm, and they need to be held accountable. We are seeking to implement measures, at the fossil fuel industry's expense, that will help crabbers adapt to a world in which domoic acid flareup's will be increasingly common, and also help those crabbers who suffer financial losses as a result."</font></p><h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.333;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Latest in a Growing List of Climate Lawsuits</font></h3><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The federation's lawsuit adds to <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04042018/climate-change-fossil-fuel-company-lawsuits-timeline-exxon-children-california-cities-attorney-general" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">a growing list of municipalities that have turned to the courts</a> in the last two years seeking to hold fossil fuel companies financially responsible for the threat posed by climate change.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The fossil fuel companies' legal teams have pushed back hard, and judges have <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26062018/california-cities-climate-change-lawsuits-dismissed-fossil-fuels-industry-rising-sea-levels" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">dismissed some of the lawsuits</a>, saying it's not up to the courts to decide climate policy but rather the job of the legislative and executive branches of the federal government.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"This case will face similar obstacles as the other cases," said Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. Beyond the lawsuit being filed by a private party and the particular harms cited to the crab fishing industry by warming oceans, the complaint appears to similar to other climate litigation, he said.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The federation, like many of the other litigants, alleges the fossil fuel companies knew for nearly 50 years that the production and use of fossil fuel created greenhouse gases responsible for global warming. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Instead of working to reduce the use and combustion of fossil fuel products, lower the rate of greenhouse gas emissions, minimize the damage associated with continued high use and combustion of such products, and ease the transition to a lower carbon economy, defendants concealed the dangers, sought to undermine public support for greenhouse gas regulation, and engaged in massive campaigns to promote the ever-increasing use of their products at ever greater volumes," the lawsuit says.</font></p></div></div></div></div><div class="tagged-with" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-transform: uppercase; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><label style="box-sizing: inherit; display: block; line-height: 1.2;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PUBLISHED UNDER:</font></label><div class="field field-name-field-topics field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topics/agriculture" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AGRICULTURE</font></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; 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background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">LITIGATION</a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div> <div class="field-item odd" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topic/climate-change" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">CLIMATE CHANGE</a></div> <div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topic/ocean" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">OCEAN</a></div></div></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/how-private-probation-companies-make-money-americans-they-trap-criminal-justice</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Marietta Conner watched the judge expectantly. <b>The 63-year-old assistant minister </b>had just pled guilty to “<b>fail[ing] to yield to a pedestrian”</b>—a criminal misdemeanor in Georgia—and did not have enough money to pay her $140 fine. The judge ordered that she be put on probation. But instead of county probation, Conner was assigned a private probation company supposed to mimic normal court probabation: meet with her once a month through a probation officer, collect payments and confirm her work and address. In the end, the company sapped Conner of well over the original amount of the fine, and<b> even dangled an arrest warrant over her head when it erroneously claimed she had missed a payment.</b></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Conner was lucky. She knew someone at the Southern Center for Human Rights who helped her escape the trap the correctional corporation tried to put her in. Yet for hundreds of thousands of others on probation through a private company, the experience routinely entails prolonged harassment, indebtedness and even imprisonment—and sometimes all with the blessing of a judge.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">To be </span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ensnared in America’s system of mass incarceration is to be in prison, on parole, or on probation.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> In 2012 <a href="https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cpus12.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;">1 in every 35 American adults</a> was trapped in the criminal justice system</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> The surging number of people whose lives necessitate constant surveillance and management has exploded the coffers of state and federal budgets, and rather than reform heavy-handed laws to ease this burden on public funds, elected leaders have contracted incarceration services out to companies with a moneyed interest in jailing more Americans. </span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The private prison industry has stoked the outrage of progressives and civil libertarians for years, as has the practice of prosecutors pushing plea bargains with heavy parole, but an equally dangerous phenomenon is the rise of private probation businesses across the country. Since the 1970s, the private probation industry has expanded into at least 20 states—most concentrated in the South—and nearly all of its companies are entirely supported by the fees paid to them by the probationers they “serve.” In the last few years, many of these businesses have been given more power to pursue and imprison probationers, playing a starring role in what one federal judge called a “<a href="http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21589903-if-you-are-poor-dont-get-caught-speeding-new-debtors-prisons" style="text-decoration-line: none;">judicially sanctioned extortion racket</a>.”</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When someone is convicted of a misdemeanor crime, he or she is often placed on probation by a judge either in lieu of minor prison time or as part of a payment plan to pay off court fines levied for his charge. Traditionally, the purpose of probation has been to facilitate the rehabilitation of the probationer through constant contact with a representative of the court (a probation officer), although this concept may be farcical in an age when an adult can be placed under “community supervision” for jaywalking. With privatized supervision, the offenders are required to report monthly to a contractor acting in the same capacity as a probation officer, and they must also pay a monthly fee to the company on top of the fines they owe the court.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> distinction between fee and fine is important because, as <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21589903-if-you-are-poor-dont-get-caught-speeding-new-debtors-prisons" style="text-decoration-line: none;">noted by the Economist</a>, it is through fees that private probation companies can afford to pay the salaries of their staff</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. A report from the Criminal Justice Review </span><a href="http://www.sagepub.com/hanserstudy/articles/05/Schloss.pdf" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">explained that</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> “Private agencies…rely on the probationer’s paying a supervision fee to remain solvent.” Solvency, however, is hardly a concern for many of these corporations, some of which have amassed tens of millions of dollars annually off the fees they charge probationers.</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One such company is Sentinel Offender Services, whose combined operations in four different states brought in $30 million in 2009, <a href="http://investigations.nbcnews.com/news/2012/10/24/14653300-cash-register-justice-private-probation-services-face-legal-counterattack?lite" style="text-decoration-line: none;">according to an investigation by NBC</a>. The company has faced many legal challenges on the grounds that its employees demand payment for fees from poor probationers and then issue arrest warrants when they cannot pay, without consideration for their financial situation. Marietta Conner, the impoverished pastor, was under the supervision of Sentinel.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Although a <a href="http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/461/660/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">1983 federal ruling</a> said that probationers cannot be jailed for being indigent, Sentinel has regularly issued arrest warrants for probationers delinquent on their payments, and has even extended the probationary sentences of thousands—illegally—in order to wrest more money from them</b>. Sentinel has terrorized so many lives a <a href="http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/crime-courts/2013-09-16/private-probation-company-dealt-costly-blows-judges-ruling" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Georgia court recently ruled</a> that the company might have to refund thousands of payments to former probationers who had the unfortunate luck to be supervised by a company that “links its probation officers’ performance evaluations to the amount of money collected from probationers,” <a href="https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/InForAPenny_web.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;">according to a 2010 ACLU report</a>.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Sentinel is just one in a vanguard of 34 probation corporations in Georgia pushing to have more power to hunt down delinquent probationers. <a href="http://www.legis.ga.gov/Legislation/20132014/134192.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;">A new bill up for a vote</a> in the<b> Georgia’s House of Representatives, greased for quick passage by funds from industry lobbyists would give private probation officers increased “immunity from liability” and grant them more discretion to extend a person’s probation—and by extension, prolong a probationer’s “payment period.</b>” </font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">S</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">ome courts have actually been complicit in the racket. A circuit court in Alabama <a href="http://order/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">ruled in 2012</a> that the local municipal judiciary in Harpersville, <b>Alabama </b>had operated “debtor’s prisons” together with the private probation firm Judicial Correctional Services by turning over poor misdemeanor defendants to JCS and then allowing the company to fleece them for every cent they had.</span></font></p><div><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the event that the probationers couldn’t pay their monthly fees to the company—as was the case for many probationers in the nation’s fourth poorest state—they were thrown in jail without a trial at the behest of JCS and under the blessing of the Harpersville court, who would then doom already-indigent defendants to an inescapable pit of debt by piling even more fines and fees. The presiding judge who ruled against Harpersville was scandalized so deeply by the JCS-judiciary collusion that he accused the local court of “violating almost every safeguard afforded by the United States Constitution [and] the laws of the state of Alabama.” Meanwhile, JCS <a href="http://www.judicialservices.com/officelocations.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">continues to operate</a>in 69 cities throughout four different states.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Perhaps the most pernicious feature of these businesses is how they enable local municipalities to perpetuate debtor’s prisons across the country. In Florida, birthplace of modern privatized probation, courts permit correctional firms to tack on a 40% surcharge on top of the debt a delinquent probationer already owes, <a href="http://final.pdf/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">as detailed in an investigation</a> by the Brennan Center for Justice</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. The investigation also found that courts in Missouri regularly condemn people to prison when they cannot pay off the fees imposed by probation companies, and in Illinois, corporations shakedown impoverished probationers for 30% more of their standing debt if they miss payments. In total, the report found that nine states charged probationers excessive fees “payable to private debt collection firms”—in other words, private probation companies.</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Efforts to resist the abuses of the private probation system have been scattered and slow building. In addition to the </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">class-action lawsuits</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> filed against Sentinel in Georgia and </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">JCS in Alabama, an Idaho-based probation company <a href="http://boiseguardian.com/2011/10/06/probation-agency-defendant-in-class-action-lawsuit/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">was sued in 2011 for perpetually increasing probationer’s sentences</a> by manipulating the results of drug tests (testing positive for drugs is usually a violation of probation and can mean further penalties</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">). That same year in <b>Tennessee, </b>a group of former probationer’s </span><a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/2011/01/27/33674.htm" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">filed a successful lawsuit</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> against the owner of a company called Providence Community Corrections for having “forced them to overpay” and holding them on probation “longer than necessary.”</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet despite a proliferation of lawsuits across the country, municipalities seem to show no less willingness to contract out probation services. In addition to the 20 or so states that now allow some form of privatized probation, a state senator in at least one other place—Nebraska—has inquired with policy experts about implementing the correctional model in his home state. </font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It does not take a legal expert to discern how for-profit correctional services threaten the freedom of Americans. Private probationary companies exist only as long as there is a steady supply of probationers from whom to extract payment, and these companies grow only if the number of people on probation grows. As evidenced further by the case of prison contractors, some of which have compelled state governors to keep prisons 90% full, a privatized correctional model maintains the American system of mass incarceration by further building it into an industry. </font></p></div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">--</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/kushner-companies-loses-a-key-motion-in-class-action-filed-by-baltimore-tenants">https://www.propublica.org/article/kushner-companies-loses-a-key-motion-in-class-action-filed-by-baltimore-tenants</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Am Immigration council class act against ppl being turned away b/c Am is full Harbury DN 7/9/18</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://litigationfinancejournal.com/chamber-commerce-ranked-2-top-30-tort-reform-hypocrites-list">https://litigationfinancejournal.com/chamber-commerce-ranked-2-top-30-tort-reform-hypocrites-list</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform (ILR) has ranked #2 on The New York Law School’s Center for Justice & Democracy’s 2018 ranking of the top-30 tort reform hypocrites. The report aims to reveal which tort reform advocates are the most litigious, and thereby hypocritical in their efforts to scale back the litigiousness of other entities. The ILR, which consistently advocates for numerous tort reform measures including mandatory disclosure of third party funding agreements and placing interest rate caps on Consumer Legal Funding transactions, placed second on the list behind only President Trump.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span id="more-2632" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" /></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to the report, the ILR was established in 1998 to pursue the Chamber’s tort reform agenda. Since its inception, however, the ILR “has spent millions on federal lobbying to in an effort to keep victims from having their cases heard before a civil judge or jury.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The U.S. Chamber is the top lobbying spender in the country, having spent a whopping $109MM in 2017 alone ($22MM of which was spent by the ILR). Yet despite spending all of that money on efforts to scale back the ability of others to litigate, the Chamber itself is one of the nation’s top litigators. Over the last decade, “the Chamber has been involved in over 1100 lawsuits, either as a plaintiff or as an amicus curiae,” according to the report.</font></p><div class="page" title="Page 9" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="layoutArea" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="column" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Chamber’s President, Tom Donohue, told the Washington Examiner in 2015: “We spend half of our time trying to reduce the number of suits by class-action lawyers and the other half of our time suing the hell out of the government. We sue the federal government and units of the federal government and some state governments, 180-90 times a year.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The report cites the Chamber for its hypocrisy, and notes that the Chamber is a longtime member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)’s Civil Justice Task Force, an entity “devoted solely to weakening or eliminating corporate liability for wrongdoing.” An investigative report by the Center for Media and Democracy found that bills proposed by ALEC “make it harder for average Americans to access the civil justice system” and “provide relief and protections for the industries who wrote them.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The #1 tort reform hypocrite according to the report is President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly scaled back access to justice – his de-fanging of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is but one example – while simultaneously suing or threatening to sue anyone and everyone whom he perceives has done him wrong.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rounding out the top-5 on the list are the National Rifle Association, the National Federation of Independent Business, and General Motors.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The entire report can be found <a href="https://www.almcms.com/contrib/content/uploads/documents/1/Critical-Mass-nts-6-13-Tort-Reform-Hypocrites-Report.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">here</a>.</font></p></div></div></div></div><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The entire report can be found <a href="https://www.almcms.com/contrib/content/uploads/documents/1/Critical-Mass-nts-6-13-Tort-Reform-Hypocrites-Report.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">here</a>.<a href="https://www.almcms.com/contrib/content/uploads/documents/1/Critical-Mass-nts-6-13-Tort-Reform-Hypocrites-Report.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"> https://www.almcms.com/contrib/content/uploads/documents/1/Critical-Mass-nts-6-13-Tort-Reform-Hypocrites-Report.pdf</a></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">. President Donald J. Trump...............................................................................................................2 2. U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform (ILR) .............................................................4 3. National Rifle Association (NRA) ...................................................................................................... 6 4. National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB)..........................................................................7 5. General Motors (GM) ....................................................................................................................... 9 6. <b><i>Chrysler..........................................................................................................................................10 7. Uber...............................................................................................................................................12 8. Airbnb.</i></b>...........................................................................................................................................13 9. Amazon .........................................................................................................................................14 10. Verizon ......................................................................................................................................15 11. Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA)....................................................................15 </font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">12. Debt Collectors ..........................................................................................................................16 iv</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> 13. State Farm.................................................................................................................................18 14. Liberty Mutual............................................................................................................................19 15. Farmers Insurance ..................................................................................................................... 20 16. Honeywell International............................................................................................................. 20 17. Covington & Burling ...................................................................................................................21 18. Texas Governors.........................................................................................................................23 19. U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX)......................................................................................................23 20. Retiring U.S. Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA).......................................................................... 24 21. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin ...........................................................................................25 22. Ted Frank, Director, Center for Class Action Fairness................................................................... 26 23. Koch Industries/Georgia-Pacific.................................................................................................. 28 24. ExxonMobil/Rex Tillerson........................................................................................................... 29 25. Amway/parent Alticor.................................................................................................................30 26. Bayer Corporation......................................................................................................................30 27. Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad (BNSF).............................................................................31 28. Pfizer..........................................................................................................................................32 29. Teva Pharmaceutical ...................................................................................................................33 30. Procter & Gamble (P&G)..............................................................................................................33 About the Center for Justice & Democracy at New York Law School.....</font></p></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/06/19/alec-deadly-asbestos-agenda-benefits-koch-industries">https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/06/19/alec-deadly-asbestos-agenda-benefits-koch-industries</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) <a href="https://www.alec.org/article/legislator-of-the-week-missouri-representative-bruce-degroot/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">named</a> Missouri Republican state Rep. Bruce DeGroot as a “Legislator of the Week” in June.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Why is ALEC so fond of DeGroot? Because he has cheerfully championed </span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ALEC legislation to restrict the right of terminally ill, asbestos victims to sue over mesothelioma. In doing so, DeGroot is helping the many U.S. companies, including ALEC funders Koch Industries and Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, that have </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">asbestos-</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">related liability.</span></b></font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NATIONWIDE, NOT ON YOUR SIDE</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mesothelioma is an aggressive type of lung cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. Even though the dangers of deadly asbestos have been known for over 100 years, </span><a href="https://www.asbestos.com/companies/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background: 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">industry</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> worked hard to bury evidence that workers were being harmed by asbestos exposure.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Three thousand people are diagnosed each year with <a href="https://www.maacenter.org/mesothelioma/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">mesothelioma</a> in the United States and most die within a year or two. Most victims are public servants, veterans, firefighters, even teachers exposed to asbestos in schools.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition to being an ALEC politician, Degroot is an attorney for an insurance defense firm, Brown & James, which represents dozens of insurers who, in turn, have as <a href="https://www.brownjames.com/content/114/representative-clients.aspx" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">clients</a> companies responsible for mesothelioma-related claims. One of the firm’s clients is <b>Nationwide.</b> Sources tell the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) that Nationwide was actively pushing the bill in Missouri, although it was not <a href="https://house.mo.gov/billtracking/bills181/sumpdf/HB1645C.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">publicly listed</a> as a supporter of the bill.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In many states, a legislator who introduced a bill benefitting his firm’s clients could face ethics charges or worse. In Missouri, “it is unseemly, to say the least, and one of the reasons we need ethics reform in this state,” said deputy director Sharon Geuea Jones of the Missouri Association of Trial Lawyers.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Nationwide has long been a <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Corporations" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">corporate sponsor of ALEC</a>.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> In 2014 and 2015, for example, Nationwide incurred asbestos-related losses of $148 million and $98 million respectively, giving it one of the largest asbestos liabilities of any insurer for those years, according to </span><a href="https://www.casact.org/community/affiliates/cagny/0516/Cavanaugh-Makuc.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Casualty Actuaries of Greater New York</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ALEC PROTECTIONS FOR ASBESTOS COMPANIES</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At ALEC, corporate lobbyists and politicians vote as equals behind closed doors on “model” bills that advance corporate interests over consumers’ interests. DeGroot’s bill, <a href="https://legiscan.com/MO/text/HB1645/2018" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">HB 1645</a> or “The Asbestos Transparency Act,” bears a striking similarity to ALEC’s “<a href="https://www.alec.org/model-policy/asbestos-claims-transparency-act/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Asbestos Claims Transparency Act</a>.” The Missouri House passed the bill in March, but the Senate has yet to take action.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The bill would force victims of asbestos to search out bankrupt companies that made asbestos, not just companies still in business.</b> The problem for the injured is that many companies that made asbestos or had asbestos products have sought bankruptcy protection and are now in trusts. These trusts are more difficult to sue, their assets are harder to determine, and the victims often die before their case is heard. The bill would also limit the time victims have to bring a case after diagnosis, even though it takes more time to prepare for a suit against bankrupt companies.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DeGroot can’t say enough about how awesome ALEC’s cookie-cutter corporate legislation is. “ALEC and ALEC model policy are a great resource. ALEC was able to put me in touch with an expert who was willing to travel to Missouri to testify in support of one of the bills I filed, Asbestos Transparency Trust,” <a href="https://www.alec.org/article/legislator-of-the-week-missouri-representative-bruce-degroot/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">DeGroot said in an ALEC interview</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That “expert” was <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Mark_Behrens" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Mark Behrens</a>, a partner of the Kansas City law firm <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Shook,Hardy%26_Bacon" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Shook, Hardy & Bacon</a>. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The firm has a national reputation for representing deadly industries like Big Tobacco. Behrens travels around the country lobbying on behalf of ALEC’s many asbestos bills, but tells the public that he is representing other clients like the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform.</span></font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EMOTIONAL FLOOR DEBATE</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A cheerful DeGroot opened floor debate saying inaccurately that the bill simply stopped “double dipping” by asbestos victims, but the issue quickly turned emotional.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The first legislator to speak was Republican Rep. Steve Cookson, who is suffering from liver cancer. “I have been up here for eight years and most bills that we talk about are about protecting somebody’s money.… This bill is designed to protect out of state companies and insurance companies.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cookson went on to say that in the past he had been supportive of some tort reform bills. “I reflect back now, and you know I have a personal situation going on right here. I think a lot more about life and death. I would ask you, did you ever contemplate the way you want to die?” he asked of DeGroot.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Well that is a bit personal,” responded DeGroot with a nervous laugh.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Well, so do you want to die a slow death where you lay there in the bed and suffocate to death?” asked Cookson.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I wouldn’t like that, no,” said Degroot.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cookson went on to say that for the time he had left in the legislature, he wanted to make sure he was on the side of those “laying in the hospital for a long long time suffering, surrounded by their families…. I can’t bring myself to be in support of anything that would compromise a person’s ability to be made whole, and their family to be made whole because they had to leave this world in a horrible fashion in an abbreviated time they would have been expected to live.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The ALEC bill offered by DeGroot would mean that many victims would not live to see their day in court. As one opposing legislator, Rep. Jay Barnes explained, “<a href="https://themissouritimes.com/48953/asbestos-bankruptcy-transparency-act-perfected-by-house/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">the best evidence in an asbestos case is the plaintiff, and when they die, that goes away</a>.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Similar bills based on the ALEC model have passed in 15 states: Ohio, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Arizona, Texas, Utah, Tennessee, South Dakota, North Dakota, Iowa, Mississippi, Michigan, Kansas, and North Carolina.</font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">KOCH INDUSTRIES LIMITS ITS EXPOSURE TO MESOTHELIOMA LAWSUITS</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Koch Industries is the largest privately held company in America, with multiple subsidiary firms. When Koch acquired the paper company Georgia-Pacific LLC in 2007, it also became responsible for Bestwall LLC, which up until 1977 made a <a href="https://www.asbestos.com/companies/bestwall-gypsum.php" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">joint compound that contained asbestos</a>. And because mesothelioma symptoms only appear after 10 to 50 years, Koch knew that when it purchased Georgia-Pacific, it also became responsible for thousands of asbestos lawsuits.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Koch Industries is a big financial supporter of ALEC and has served on the ALEC private enterprise board for many years, including in 2007 when the ALEC board approved the Asbestos Claims Transparency Act. Subsequently, in 2017, Koch Industries put Bestwall into bankruptcy to limit its exposure to mesothelioma lawsuits.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">An affiliate of Koch’s Georgia-Pacific, Bestwall, joined “scores of U.S. manufacturers that have filed for bankruptcy due to asbestos litigation, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">and comes as the U.S. Congress mulls a bill that plaintiffs’ lawyers say would discourage asbestos claims,” wrote </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-georgiapacific-asbestos-bankruptcy/georgia-pacific-unit-seeks-bankruptcy-in-wake-of-asbestos-cases-idUSKBN1D21LP" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;"><em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Reuters</em></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. The misnamed </span><a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/906" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">FACT Act</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> is supported by ALEC, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and companies with billions of dollars of liability for asbestos claims, including Koch Industries.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Koch now argues that Bestwall was only a minor user of asbestos, but construction workers were exposed to multiple sources of asbestos, and since many of the responsible parties no longer exist, victims’ lawyers are forced to sue more than one company.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Koch complains it is spending $160 million a year defending its subsidiary against asbestos lawsuits</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. It could have set up a trust fund from the beginning when it acquired Bestwall to pay victims with that money instead of fighting every lawsuit, and is now slowing the process by putting the company into bankruptcy.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Americans for Tax Fairness estimates that the Kochs will get <a href="https://americansfortaxfairness.org/analysis-koch-brothers-get-1-billion-tax-cut-law-helped-pass/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">$1.4 billion from the Jobs and Tax Cut Act of 2017</a>, money that could be used to pay asbestos victims before they die.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Instead, Koch and its allies are working hard to pass laws that run out the clock.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>game over tipping pt?! rbg v gorsuch</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2018/5/23/supreme_court_deals_blow_to_workers">https://www.democracynow.org/2018/5/23/supreme_court_deals_blow_to_workers</a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>a major blow to workers’ rights, the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 Monday that employers can use arbitration clauses to prohibit workers from banding together to challenge violations of federal labor laws in class-action lawsuits.</b> Arbitration is often confidential. Many workers may agree to mandatory arbitration clauses without even being aware of it when they sign a contract with their employer. In a rare show of public displeasure, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg read her dissent from the bench, calling the majority opinion “egregiously wrong” and saying, “The court today holds enforceable these arm-twisted, take-it-or-leave-it contracts—including the provisions requiring employees to litigate wage and hours claims only one-by-one. Federal labor law does not countenance such isolation of employees.” For more, we speak with Terri Gerstein, former labor bureau chief for the New York State Attorney General’s Office</font></span></p><p><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></p><p><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">bill to save class action on sex harrass cd be expended to other groups</font></span></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">nomi prins 12/17 AN</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/economy/next-financial-crisis-will-be-worse-last-one">https://www.alternet.org/economy/next-financial-crisis-will-be-worse-last-one</a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...O<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">n the flip side of that euphoria however, is the fact that the </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy/u-s-job-growth-picks-up-flat-wages-raise-consumer-spending-worries-idUSKBN1D308L" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">median wage</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> rose just 2.4 percent and has remained effectively stagnant relative to inflation. And although the unemployment rate fell to a 17-year low of 4.1 percent, the labor force participation rate dropped to 62.7 percent, its lowest level in nearly four decades—particularly difficult for new entrants to the workforce, such as students graduating under a $1.3 trillion pile of unrepayable or very challenging </span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/student-loan-bubble-investment-is-private-abs-goldman-2017-12" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">student loan debt</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. (Not to worry though: Goldman Sachs is on that, promoting a way to profit from this debt by stuffing it into other assets and selling those off to investors, a la shades of the subprime mortgage crisis.)</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Those of us living in the actual world without billionaire family pedigrees possess a healthy dose of skepticism over the “Make America Great Again” sect that believes Trump has transformed America “hugely,” for record-setting markets don’t imply economic stability, nor do 40 percent corporate tax cuts translate into 40 percent wage growth. We can march forward into 2018 carrying that knowledge with us.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But first, a recap. For the U.S. financial system, 2017 was marked by five main themes: The GOP’s “You All Just Got a Lot Richer” Corporate Tax Reduction Plan; Big Banks Still Bad; The Fed’s Minor Policy Shift; Debt; and Deregulators Appointed to Positions of Regulatory Authority.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Banks Are Still Big and Bad</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Big Six banks have paid billions of dollars in settlements for a variety of frauds committed before and since the 2007-2008 financial crisis, but that didn’t keep them from tallying up new fines in 2017</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. The nation’s largest bank, JPMorgan Chase, agreed to </span><a href="https://www.corp-research.org/jpmorganchase" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">pay $53 million in fines</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> for scamming African-American and Latino mortgage borrowers with disproportionately higher rates than for white borrowers. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau </span><a href="https://www.corp-research.org/citigroup" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">fined Citigroup $28.8 million</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> for not disclosing foreclosure-avoiding actions. Bank of America </span><a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2017/03/28/judge-fines-bank-america-45-million-for-heartless-treatment-mortgage-borrowers.html" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">got fined $45 million</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> for its foul treatment of a California couple trying to save their home.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But the Big Six bank that received the most attention in 2017, as it did in 2016, was </span><a href="https://financialadvisoriq.com/search/search/advanced?referrer_module=companyTag&q=%22Wells+Fargo%22" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">Wells Fargo</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. The number of people affected by its fake-account creation scandal grew from 2 million reported in 2016 to about 3.5 million. </span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">That increase resulted in </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Wells Fargo expanding its associated <a href="https://financialadvisoriq.com/c/1824523/211663" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">class-action settlement</a> to $142 million.</span></b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wells Fargo was mired in smaller scandals, too. For instance, it charged 800,000 customers for auto insurance they didn’t need, raised mortgage rates for certain customers without properly disclosing it was going to, and made a bunch of unauthorized adjustments to people’s mortgages.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">No Glass-Steagall Reinstatement, More Deregulation</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The idea of reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 featured in both the Democratic and the Republican National Committees’ platforms during the campaign season. But Trump’s treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, made it clear multiple times there would be no such push from the administration, arguing against doing so before senators including Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To emphasize his disdain for regulation and oversight, Mnuchin also pushed the Financial Stability Oversight Council, over which he presides, to vote 6 to 3 to rescind American International Group’s designation as posing a potential threat to the U.S. financial system. Thus, AIG will no longer be <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-bc-us--aig-systemic-risk-20170929-story.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">paying penance for its role</a> at the epicenter of the last financial crisis by filing regular risk reports anymore. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen also supported the move.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/10/cfpb-mandatory-arbitration/543918/">https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/10/cfpb-mandatory-arbitration/543918/</a></font></div><div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=-</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/fracking-dimock-2474053132.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/fracking-dimock-2474053132.html</a></font></p><div class="headline-container" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h1 class="headline h1" style="margin: 10px; padding: 0px; position: relative; line-height: 31px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fracking Giant Sues Dimock Resident for $5M for Speaking to Media About Water Contamination</font></h1></div><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="js-scroll-trigger" data-target="body" data-triggers="render-rebelbar" data-toggle-class="with-floating-shares" data-loaded="true" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></span></font></p><div class="article-body body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url selectionShareable" data-url="https://www.ecowatch.com/fracking-dimock-2474053132.html" data-headline="Fracking Giant Sues Dimock Resident for $5M for Speaking to Media About Water Contamination" data-elid="2474053132" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px;"><div class="article-description body-description" style="margin-bottom: 10px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ever since <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/pennsylvania-fracking-linked-to-migraines-nasal-problems-eacedf33ce88/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">the dangerous consequences</a> of natural gas extraction via hydraulic fracturing—popularly known as "<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/fracking/" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">fracking</a>"—entered the national consciousness, the small town of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/water-contamination-lawsuit-dimock-2344423944.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Dimock, Pennsylvania</a> has arguably been "ground zero" for water contamination caused by the controversial practice.</font></p><p style="margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Now Cabot Oil & Gas, the massive energy company responsible for numerous fracking wells near Dimock, is <a href="http://www.pressconnects.com/story/news/local/pennsylvania/2017/08/09/cabot-files-suit-dimock-resident-lawyers/104428486/?from=global&sessionKey=&autologin=" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">suing</a> one of the town's residents for $5 million, claiming that his efforts to "attract media attention" to the pollution of his water well have "harmed" the company. According to the lawsuit, Dimock resident Ray Kemble's actions breached an earlier 2012 settlement that was part of an<b> ongoing federal class action lawsuit </b>over the town's water quality. Kemble has stated that Cabot's fracking turned his groundwater "black, like mud, [with] a strong chemical odor."</font></p><p style="margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="text-align: center;">Earlier this year, Kemble </span><a href="http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/new-suit-alleges-fracking-polluted-dimock-twp-well-water-1.2180655" target="blank" style="text-align: center; text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">filed a follow-up lawsuit</a><span style="text-align: center;"> </span></b><span style="text-align: center;"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">against Cabot, which was based on new findings that could help him prove the link between Cabot's fracking operation and the contamination of his well.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Cabot, at the time, argued that the case was built on "inflammatory allegations" intended to "poison the jury pool" and "extort payment" from the company.</span></span></font></p><p style="margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Kemble <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/08/13/cabot-fracking-5-million-lawsuit-water-contamination-ray-kemble-dimock" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">eventually dropped</a> his lawsuit, acting in response to new information that he thought might negatively affect the case. Kemble's lawyers have declined to comment on the nature of that information. Cabot alleged that this lawsuit was a breach of the 2012 settlement contract Kemble had signed, prompting them to counter-sue Kemble.</font></p><p style="margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Cabot's decision to sue Ray Kemble may be motivated by more than their distaste for his now-dismissed lawsuit. In context, it appears meant to intimidate and "send a message" to Kemble and any other resident thinking of voicing similar concerns and objections. Days before Cabot's lawsuit against Kemble was filed, the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry (ATSDR) <a href="http://powersource.post-gazette.com/powersource/policy-powersource/2017/08/04/Dimock-methane-Cabot-Agency-for-Toxic-Substances-Marcellus-shale-natural-gas-water-contamination/stories/201708030135" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">arrived in Dimock</a> to examine the groundwater of several homes close to Cabot fracking wells, including Kemble's</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kemble <a href="http://www.pressconnects.com/story/news/local/pennsylvania/2017/08/09/cabot-files-suit-dimock-resident-lawyers/104428486/?from=global&sessionKey=&autologin=" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">described</a> the state of his groundwater to the Associated Press: "Take a skunk and every household chemical, put it in a blender, puree it for five minutes and take a whiff. It burns the back of your throat, makes you gag, makes you want to puke. It's all still bad. That's why they're back up here."
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The ATSDR <a href="http://www.pressconnects.com/story/news/local/pennsylvania/2017/08/09/cabot-files-suit-dimock-resident-lawyers/104428486/?from=global&sessionKey=&autologin=" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">told the AP</a> that it is testing Dimock's water for bacteria, gases and chemicals in order to "determine if there are drinking water quality issues that may continue to pose a health threat." Their <a href="https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/hac/pha/DimockGroundwaterSite/Dimock_Groundwater_Site_HC_05-24-2016_508.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">previous study</a> in 2012 found high levels of chemicals such as <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/methane" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">methane</a>, cadmium, lead and arsenic. They also found that several residences were "at risk of explosion or fire" due to high methane levels. In the past, several drinking water wells in Dimock <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/officials-in-three-states-pin-water-woes-on-gas-drilling-426" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">have exploded</a> due to the high amount of methane now present in the town's water.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dimock residents have been expressing concern over the quality of their water for nearly a decade. In 2009, Pennsylvania state officials <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/officials-in-three-states-pin-water-woes-on-gas-drilling-426" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">determined</a> that Cabot Oil & Gas was responsible for the contamination, though <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/so-is-dimocks-water-really-safe-to-drink" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">the EPA complicated</a> this decision by announcing in 2012 that Dimock's water was "safe" to drink. The EPA arrived at this conclusion despite the fact that its investigators—along with the ATSDR—<a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-epa-dimock-20130728-m-story.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">had found</a> "significant damage to the water quality" due to the presence of nearby fracking wells.</font></p></div></div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">defense in DC inaug charges 80 yrs prision</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.alternet.org/activism/unprecedented-court-escalation-trump-protesters-could-be-facing-decades-prison-their</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: " futura="Futura" lt="LT" w01="W01" medium="Medium" sans-serif="sans-serif" line-height="line-height" margin="margin" px="px" text-transform="text-transform" uppercase="uppercase" font-size="font-size" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">KEEPING UP WITH THE KOCHS AS OKLAHOMA ATTORNEY GENERAL</font></h3><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The stack of Pruitt emails received by CMD reveal <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3472487-Produce-4000.html/#document/p111" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">email exchanges</a> between Aaron Cooper, Director of Public Affairs for the attorney general’s office and Matt Ball, Oklahoma State Director for Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the right-wing political advocacy arm of the Koch political empire.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">July 2013 emails show Ball organizing an August 22 event featuring Pruitt, Sen. James Lankford (OK-R), and William Yeatman, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). Both <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Koch_candidates,2016#Oklahoma_2" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">Lankford</a> and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Competitive_Enterprise_Institute#CEI.27s_Foundation_Funders" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">CEI</a> have received Koch funding. In organizing the event, Ball helpfully instructs the AG’s staff on what he wants Pruitt to say,</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Frankly, I just assume the AG and Lankford talk sue and settle, how the EPA is deploying these tactics and what their respective offices have done on oversight and litigation, and let Yeatman from CEI give an objective analysis of costs to ratepayers from revised state implementation plan on regional haze (which includes the PSO rate increase). That way you guys don’t have to deliver those messages and can focus on what the AG does best, opposing the Obama administration and its nasty tactics on the environment.” Industry groups and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce claim that agencies like EPA are “regulating” outside the normal rule making process when they are sued by environmentalist groups, like Greenpeace and Sierra Club, for not following the law and then settle those lawsuits in legally binding, court ordered agreements without inviting states or industry to participate.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cooper promptly responds, “I think that what be good from our standpoint.” Ball, on August 14, sends an <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3472487-Produce-4000.html/#document/p136" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">email</a> with the final schedule detailed in which he praises Pruitt for “all they are doing to push back against President Obama’s EPA and its axis with liberal environmental groups.” Pruitt led a group of state attorneys general in suing the EPA for its correspondence with environmental groups.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3472487-Produce-4000.html/#document/p181" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">another</a> email, Ball requests a same day meeting with Pruitt’s Chief of Staff and Assistant Attorney General, Melissa Houston and she agrees to meet him the next day in the AG’s conference room. The fractured emails do not indicate what the meeting was about.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3472489-Produce-6000.html/#document/p51" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration: none;">another email</a> from December 2013, invites Dean Kuckelman, Senior Counsel, Litigation and Discovery, for Koch Companies Public Sector to a conference call with two of Pruitt’s assistant attorneys general and the Solicitor General. The topic of the conference is not known. This email followed an email from Kuckelman to Houston with an attachment produced by the American Tort Reform (ATR) entitled, “Judicial Hell Holes.” The Kochs share ATR’s goals to make it harder for consumers to <b>sue</b> over products and services that kill or injure people. Judicial “hell holes” refer to states where it is easier for consumers to sue or unite in class action suits against giant, deep-pocketed corporations.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is only a small sampling of the emails between Koch and ALEC staff and Pruitt staff, CMD is fighting for 1,600 pages withheld by Pruitt’s office in the lawsuit and additional emails, which will likely shed further light on these meetings and relationships.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The cozy relationship between Pruitt, the Kochs, ALEC crew, and the big polluters who fund ALEC will no doubt continue as Pruitt begins to dismantle the EPA.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Upon his appointment ALEC released a statement lauding Pruitt and claiming that Trump has “found just the right person to bring fresh leadership and much-needed reform to an agency currently out of control. Anyone who values striking a balance between sensible environmental regulations and the rule of law should delight in Pruitt’s appointment.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While the corporate-fueled ALEC may be delighted, Americans concerned about the future of America’s lakes, bays, rivers, and more find Pruitt’s close relationship with polluters not very charming.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? relevant?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/aurora-shooting-survivors-paying-cinemarks-legal-bill</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...<span style="line-height: 32px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">While Holmes was found guilty in 2015, a group of survivors </span><a href="http://www.denverpost.com/2016/06/30/cinemark-aurora-theater-shooting-victims-legal-fees/" rel="external nofollow" target="blank" style="line-height: 32px; text-decoration: none;">filed</a><span style="line-height: 32px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> a state lawsuit against Cinemark in 2012, claiming lax security allowed the heavily-armed Holmes to enter the theater and carry out the shooting. Ultimately, a jury of six sided with Cinemark in the civil case in state court, finding that there was no way they could have foreseen the attack and that additional security would have done little to stop Holmes, who was wearing body armor and was armed with gas canisters and multiple firearms.”</span></font></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A judge at the same time also dismissed a similar lawsuit in federal court, saying Cinemark’s lack of security was not a substantial factor in the deaths.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Colorado law allows the winning side of civil cases to seek costs. According to the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-batman-shooting-lawsuit-20160822-snap-story.html" style="text-decoration: none;">Los Angeles Times</a>, Cinemark’s lawyers at the time told a judge the money was needed to cover the costs of preserving evidence, retrieving and copying records, travel and other expenses – including $500,000 for expert testimony.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The judge in the case, District Judge R. Brooke Jackson, gave both sides 24 hours to come to a settlement agreement, urging the survivors to take a settlement from Cinemark. The company offered $150,000 split among 41 plaintiffs. The Times spoke to four people privy to the confidential negotiations:</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They decided on a split of $30,000 each to the three most critically injured survivors. The remaining 38 plaintiffs would equally share the remaining $60,000.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">House passes bills to rein in activist influence on regulations</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">By JOHN SICILIANO • 1/7/16 7:34 PM</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The House passed two Republican-backed bills to roll back excessive regulations and prevent environmentalists from influencing regulations through so-called "sue-and-settle" tactics.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Business groups welcomed passage of the first bill the "Sunshine for Regulatory Decrees and Settlements Act of 2015," by a vote of 244 to 173, which <b>takes aim at the use of class-action lawsuits to get federal agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency to agree to their terms in settlement agreements and defense decrees</b>.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The House also passed, 245 to 174, the SCRUB Act, which would set up a special bipartisan commission to hunt down burdensome rules for repeal and put a damper on federal overreach.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The White House said earlier this week that President Obama would veto both bills.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Stay abreast of the latest developments from nation's capital and beyond with curated News Alerts from the Washington Examiner news desk and delivered to your inbox.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"Today we are one step closer to reforming our broken regulatory system after passage of this common-sense legislation," said <b>William Kovacs, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's senior vice president for regulatory affairs and the environment, in response to passage of the sue-and-settle bill.</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"The abusive 'sue and settle' practice has gone on long enough, with the public denied the right to weigh in on major policy decisions brought before courts under private agreements between agencies and advocacy groups," Kovacs added. "Regulations that arise from this secretive process cost businesses many millions of dollars and can stunt economic growth."</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The House appears more emboldened than ever to chase down what the GOP sees as regulatory overreach by the president. The House is also expected to take up a resolution of disapproval next week nullifying the EPA's Waters of the United States rule, which has become a prime target by the leadership for repeal.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The water rules make ranchers and farmers subject to enforcement actions by designating ditches waterways, which lawmakers and federal judges have questioned in recent months.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Jim Tozzi, former head of the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under President Ronald Reagan, says more is needed to rein in regulations by establishing a regulatory cap.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Also from the Washington Examiner</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"Basically we are beginning to convince advocates for less regulation that if they continue to place procedural constraints on regulators that although such actions will decrease the rate of growth in the regulatory state it will continue to increase but at a slower rate," Tozzi said in an email. "The fix is a regulatory budget, which is the key to kingdom. A regulatory budget puts a cap on the total costs that regulators can impose on the public."</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tozzi was involved with groups who advised lawmakers on the SCRUB Act. He is the head of the regulatory watchdog group Center for Regulatory Effectivenes.</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/house-passes-bills-to-rein-in-activist-influence-on-regulations/article/2579901">http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/house-passes-bills-to-rein-in-activist-influence-on-regulations/article/2579901</a></font></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></p></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="http://ecowatch.com/2016/05/26/monsanto-losses-pcb-lawsuit/">http://ecowatch.com/2016/05/26/monsanto-losses-pcb-lawsuit/</a></font></font></font></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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</div><div>A St. Louis jury has awarded three plaintiffs a total of $46.5 million in damages in a lawsuit alleging that Monsanto and three other companies were negligent in its handling of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, a highly toxic and carcinogenic group of chemicals.</div><div>
</div><div>This case, which went on trial April 28, involved only three of nearly<b> 100 plaintiffs</b> claiming that exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, caused non-Hodgkin lymphoma. </div><div>Yesterday’s 10-2 verdict in St. Louis Circuit Court awarded $17.5 million in damages to the three plaintiffs and assessed an additional $29 million in punitive damages against Monsanto, Solutia, Pharmacia and Pfizer, the St. Louis Dispatch reported.</div><div>
</div><div>PCBs were used to insulate electronics decades ago. Before switching operations to agriculture, Monsanto was the sole manufacturer of the compound from 1935 until 1977. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) banned PCBs in 1979, due to its link to birth defects and cancer in laboratory animals. PCBs can also have adverse skin and liver effects in humans. PCBs linger in the environment for many decades.</div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">flint water
</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6/15</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MONTREAL (AP) — A judge has awarded more than $15 billion Canadian (US$12 billion) to Quebec smokers in a case that pitted them against three giant tobacco companies. The case is believed to be the biggest <b>class-action lawsuit </b>ever seen in Canada.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; line-height: 21px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Superior Court Justice Brian Riordan said in his decision released late Monday that by choosing not to inform health authorities or the public directly of what they knew, the companies chose profits over the health of their customers.</font></p></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">chls <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Black is </span><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20884696/site/newsweek/page/0/">currently working</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> with AT&T in its lobbying campaign to be given retroactive immunity against lawsuits for having assisted the administration in its warrantless wiretapping program.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A <b>class action</b>, <b>class suit</b>, or <b>representative action</b> is where a group (a class) sues another party. It is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleonasm" title="Pleonasm" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">pleonastic</a> to refer to a class action as a "class action suit". Collective lawsuits originated in the United States and are still predominantly a U.S. phenomenon. But in several European countries with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_law(legal_system)" title="Civil law (legal system)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">civil law</a>, contrary to Anglo-American <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law" title="Common law" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">common law</a>, changes have been made in recent years to allow consumer organizations to bring claims on behalf of consumers.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div id="toc" class="toc" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 7px; display: table; zoom: 1; background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);"><div id="toctitle" style="direction: ltr; text-align: center;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><h2 style="margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border: none; display: inline; line-height: 1.3; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New 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size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times 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Roman">Contents</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></h2> <span class="toctoggle" style="-webkit-user-select: none;"> [<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#" id="togglelink" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">hide</a>] </span></div><ul style="line-height: 1.6; list-style-type: none; margin: 0.3em 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#U.S.federal_class_actions" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">1</span> <span class="toctext">U.S. federal class actions</span></font></a><ul style="line-height: 1.6; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#State_class_actions" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">1.1</span> <span class="toctext">State class actions</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#History" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">1.2</span> <span class="toctext">History</span></font></a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#Advantages" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">2</span> <span class="toctext">Advantages</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#Criticisms" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">3</span> <span class="toctext">Criticisms</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-6" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#Ethics" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">4</span> <span class="toctext">Ethics</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-7" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#Defendant_class_action" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">5</span> <span class="toctext">Defendant class action</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-8" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#Mass_actions" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">6</span> <span class="toctext">Mass actions</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-9" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#Austria" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">7</span> <span class="toctext">Austria</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-10" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#Canada" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">8</span> <span class="toctext">Canada</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-11" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#France" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">9</span> <span class="toctext">France</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-12" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#Germany" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">10</span> <span class="toctext">Germany</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-13" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#Italy" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">11</span> <span class="toctext">Italy</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-14" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#India" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">12</span> <span class="toctext">India</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-15" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#Netherlands" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">13</span> <span class="toctext">Netherlands</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-16" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#Spain" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">14</span> <span class="toctext">Spain</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-17" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#Switzerland" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">15</span> <span class="toctext">Switzerland</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-18" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#United_Kingdom" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">16</span> <span class="toctext">United Kingdom</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-19" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#See_also" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">17</span> <span class="toctext">See also</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-20" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#Notes" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">18</span> <span class="toctext">Notes</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-21" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#External_links" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">19</span> <span class="toctext">External links</span></font></a><ul style="line-height: 1.6; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-22" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#U.S.law" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">19.1</span> <span class="toctext">U.S. law</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-23" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#E.U.law" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">19.2</span> <span class="toctext">E.U. law</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-24" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#Proposals_to_expand_European_class_action_law" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">19.3</span> <span class="toctext">Proposals to expand European class action law</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-25" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#Class_Action_News_Sources" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">19.4</span> <span class="toctext">Class Action News Sources</span></font></a></li></ul></li></ul></div></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Nationwide plaintiff classes are possible, but such suits must have a commonality of issues across state lines. This may be difficult if the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_law(private_law)" title="Civil law (private law)" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">civil law</a> in the various states lack significant commonalities. Large class actions brought in federal court frequently are consolidated for pre-trial purposes through the device of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multidistrict_litigation" title="Multidistrict litigation" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">multidistrict litigation</a> (MDL).<sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-3" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[3]</a></sup> It is also possible to bring class actions under state law, and in some cases the court may extend its jurisdiction to all the members of the class, including out of state (or even internationally) as the key element is the jurisdiction that the court has over the defendant.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Typically, federal courts are thought to be more favorable for defendants, and state courts more favorable for plaintiffs. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Many class actions are filed initially in state court. The defendant will frequently try to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Removal_jurisdiction" title="Removal jurisdiction" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">remove</a> the case to federal court. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_Action_Fairness_Act_of_2005" title="Class Action Fairness Act of 2005" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Class Action Fairness Act of 2005</a><sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[4]</a></sup>increases defendants' ability to remove state cases to federal court by giving federal courts original jurisdiction for all class actions with damages exceeding $5,000,000 exclusive of interest and costs.<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-5" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[5]</a></sup> It should be noted, however, that the Class Action Fairness Act contains carve-outs for "inter alia", shareholder class actions covered by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Securities_Litigation_Reform_Act" title="Private Securities Litigation Reform Act" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Private Securities Litigation Reform Act</a> of 1995 and those concerning internal corporate governance issues (the latter typically being brought as shareholder derivative actions in the state courts of Delaware, the state of incorporation of most large corporations).<sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-6" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[6]</a></sup></span></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The procedure for filing a class action is to file suit with one or several named plaintiffs on behalf of a proposed class. The proposed class must consist of a group of individuals or business entities that have suffered a common injury or injuries. Typically these cases result from an action on the part of a business or a particular product defect or policy that applied to all proposed class members in a typical manner. After the complaint is filed, the plaintiff must file a motion to have the class certified. In some cases class certification may require <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery(law)" title="Discovery (law)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">discovery</a> in order to determine its size and if the proposed class meets the standard for class certification.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Upon the motion to certify the class, the defendants may object to whether the issues are appropriately handled as a class action, to whether the named plaintiffs are sufficiently representative of the class, and to their relationship with the law firm or firms handling the case. The court will also examine the ability of the firm to prosecute the claim for the plaintiffs and their resources for dealing with class actions.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Due_process" title="Due process" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Due process</a> requires in most cases that notice describing the class action be sent, published, or broadcast to class members. As part of this notice procedure, there may have to be several notices, first a notice giving class members the opportunity to opt out of the class, i.e. if individuals wish to proceed with their own litigation they are entitled to do so, only to the extent that they give timely notice to the class counsel or the court that they are opting out. Second, if there is a settlement proposal, the court will usually direct the class counsel to send a settlement notice to all the members of the certified class, informing them of the details of the proposed settlement.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In federal <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_procedure" title="Civil procedure" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">civil procedure</a> law, which has also been accepted by approximately 35 states (through adoption of state civil procedure rules similar to the federal rules), the class action must have certain definite characteristics (often referred to by the acronym <b>CANT</b>):</font></p><ol style="line-height: 22.4px; margin: 0.3em 0px 0px 3.2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Commonality—there must be one or more legal or factual claims common to the entire class (in some cases, it must be shown that the common issues will predominate the proceedings over individual issues, such as the amount of damages due to a particular class member),</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Adequacy—the representative parties must adequately protect the interests of the class,</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Numerosity—the class must be so large as to make individual suits impractical (in other words, that the class action is a superior vehicle for resolution than numerous individual suits), and</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Typicality—the claims or defenses must be typical of the plaintiffs or defendants.</font></li></ol><h3 style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom-style: none; line-height: 1.6; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="State_class_actions">State class actions</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select: none; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px;">[</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Class_action&action=edit§ion=2" title="Edit section: State class actions" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px;">]</span></span></font></h3><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Since 1938, many states have adopted rules similar to the FRCP. However, some states, like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California" title="California" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">California</a>, have civil procedure systems, which deviate significantly from the federal rules; the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Codes" title="California Codes" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">California Codes</a> provide for four separate types of class actions. As a result, there are two separate treatises devoted solely to the complex topic of California class actions.<sup id="cite_ref-7" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-7" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[7]</a></sup> Some states, such as Virginia, do not provide for any class actions, while others, such as New York, limit the types of claims that may be brought as class actions. In 2013, several class action lawsuits have been filed under both the federal <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Debt_Collection_Practices_Act" title="Fair Debt Collection Practices Act" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Fair Debt Collection Practices Act</a> and similar Michigan state laws against some of Michigan's largest medical providers and collection agencies which may have a dramatic impact on the collection of unpaid medical bills and the collection industry as a whole.<sup id="cite_ref-8" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-8" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[8]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-9" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-9" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[9]</a></sup></font></p><h3 style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom-style: none; line-height: 1.6; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="History">History</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select: none; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px;">[</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Class_action&action=edit§ion=3" title="Edit section: History" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px;">]</span></span></font></h3><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The ancestor of the class action was what modern observers call "group litigation", which appears to have been quite common in medieval England from about 1200 onward.<sup id="cite_ref-10" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-10" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[10]</a></sup> These lawsuits involved groups of people either suing or being sued in actions at common law. These groups were usually based on existing societal structures like villages, towns, parishes, and guilds. What is striking about these early cases is that unlike modern courts, the medieval English courts <i>never</i> questioned the right of the actual plaintiffs to sue on behalf of a group or a few representatives to defend an entire group.<sup id="cite_ref-11" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-11" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[11]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">As UCLA law professor Stephen Yeazell has pointed out, the most likely reason is that the abysmally poor transportation, communications, and administrative apparatus of medieval times made it impossible for the English sovereign to directly manage the entire country in terms of individuals; it was easier to structure society by imposing obligations upon groups which were enforced by the sporadic use of force.<sup id="cite_ref-yeazell2_12-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-yeazell2-12" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[12]</a></sup> In turn, lawyers and judges who operated the king's system of justice in a society strictly organized into groups would <i>not</i> question the right of a group to sue or be sued because to do so would bring into question the entire group-oriented society in which they operated.<sup id="cite_ref-yeazell2_12-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-yeazell2-12" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[12]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">From 1400 to 1700, group litigation gradually switched from being the norm in England to the exception.<sup id="cite_ref-13" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-13" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[13]</a></sup> The development of the concept of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation" title="Corporation" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">corporation</a> led to the wealthy supporters of the corporate form becoming suspicious of all unincorporated legal entities, which in turn led to the modern concept of the unincorporated or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_association" title="Voluntary association" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">voluntary association</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-14" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-14" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[14]</a></sup> The tumultuous history of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_of_the_Roses" title="Wars of the Roses" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Wars of the Roses</a> and then the<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Chamber" title="Star Chamber" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Star Chamber</a> resulted in periods during which the common law courts were frequently paralyzed, and out of the confusion the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court_of_Chancery" title="Court of Chancery" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Court of Chancery</a> emerged with exclusive jurisdiction over group litigation.<sup id="cite_ref-15" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-15" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[15]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Chancery cases on group litigation after 1700 were a totally incoherent mess, which Yeazell has explained by pointing to the trends towards fragmentation and individualism in English society during that period; the resulting societal pressures ultimately led to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Act_1832" title="Reform Act 1832" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Reform Act 1832</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-16" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-16" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[16]</a></sup>The problem which confounded Chancery was the shift from representation based on the presumed or implied <i>consent</i> of a group to representation based on a common <i>interest</i>, such as holding shares of a corporation.<sup id="cite_ref-17" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-17" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[17]</a></sup> Group litigation has struggled with the tension between consent and interest ever since.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">By 1850, Parliament had enacted several statutes on a case-by-case basis to deal with issues regularly faced by certain types of organizations, like joint-stock companies, and with the impetus for most types of group litigation removed, it went into a steep decline in English jurisprudence from which it never recovered.<sup id="cite_ref-yeazell3_18-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-yeazell3-18" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[18]</a></sup> It was further weakened by the fact that equity pleading in general was falling into disfavor, which culminated in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicature_Acts" title="Judicature Acts" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Judicature Acts</a> of 1874 and 1875.<sup id="cite_ref-yeazell3_18-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-yeazell3-18" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[18]</a></sup> Group litigation was essentially dead in England after 1850.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Group litigation survived in the United States only thanks to the influence of Supreme Court Associate Justice <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Story" title="Joseph Story" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Joseph Story</a>, who imported it in a rather mangled form into <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_United_States" title="Law of the United States" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">U.S. law</a> through summary discussions in his two equity treatises as well as his famous opinion in <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_v.Randall" title="West v. Randall" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">West v. Randall</a></i>(1820). Although Story was highly intelligent and familiar with all the relevant English precedents, he merely summarized them in a confused fashion because he "could not conceive of a modern function or a coherent theory for representative litigation: why?"<sup id="cite_ref-19" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-19" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[19]</a></sup> Like most Americans then and since, Story took individualism for granted; on that basis, he simply could not comprehend a rule that allowed a court to bind someone who had never been a party to litigation purportedly conducted on his behalf.<sup id="cite_ref-Yeazell.2C_220_20-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-Yeazell.2C_220-20" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[20]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The oldest predecessor to the class action rule was Equity Rule 48, promulgated in 1833, which allowed for representative suits in situations where there were too many individual parties (which now forms the first requirement for class action litigation, numerosity).<sup id="cite_ref-21" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-21" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[21]</a></sup> However, this rule did not allow such suits to bind similarly situated absent parties, which rendered the rule almost entirely useless and was a direct reflection of Story's inability to understand the old English Chancery precedents.<sup id="cite_ref-22" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-22" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[22]</a></sup> Story's confusion was apparently typical of 19th-century American lawyers, as even the legendary <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus_Langdell" title="Christopher Columbus Langdell" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Christopher Columbus Langdell</a> also could not understand the old cases.<sup id="cite_ref-Yeazell.2C_220_20-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-Yeazell.2C_220-20" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[20]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Within ten years, the Supreme Court interpreted Rule 48 in such a way so that it could apply to absent parties under certain circumstances, but only by ignoring the plain meaning of the rule.<sup id="cite_ref-23" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-23" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[23]</a></sup> In the early 20th century, Equity Rule 48 was replaced with Equity Rule 38 as part of a major restructuring of the Equity Rules, and when federal courts merged their legal and equitable procedural systems in 1938, Equity Rule 38 became Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">A major revision of the FRCP in 1966 radically transformed Rule 23, made the opt-out class action the standard option, and gave birth to the modern class action. Entire treatises have been written since to summarize the huge mass of law that sprang up from the 1966 revision of Rule 23.<sup id="cite_ref-24" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-24" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[24]</a></sup> Just as medieval group litigation bound all members of the group regardless of whether they all actually appeared in court, the modern class action binds <i>all</i> members of the class, with the exception of those who appear and object.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px;"><b><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Advisory Committee that drafted the new Rule 23 in the mid-1960s was influenced by two major developments. First was the suggestion of Harry Kalven, Jr. and Maurice Rosenfeld in 1941 that </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">class action litigation by individual shareholders on behalf of all shareholders of a company</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> could effectively supplement direct government regulation of securities markets and other similar markets.</span><sup id="cite_ref-25" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-25" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[25]</a></sup><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> The second development was the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> rise of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_Civil_Rights_Movement(1955%E2%80%931968)" title="African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968)" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">African-American civil rights movement</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmentalism" title="Environmentalism" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">environmentalism</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumerism" title="Consumerism" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">consumerism</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-26" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-26" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[26]</a></sup> As expected, the groups behind these movements, as well as many others in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, all turned to class actions as a means for achieving their goals</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. For example, a 1978 environmental law treatise reprinted the </span><i style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">entire</i><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> text of Rule 23 and mentioned "class actions" 14 times in its index.</span><sup id="cite_ref-27" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-27" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[27]</a></sup></font></b></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Businesses targeted by class actions for inflicting massive aggregate harm have sought ways to avoid class actions altogether</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. In the 1990s, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a number of decisions which strengthened the "federal policy favoring <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitration" title="Arbitration" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">arbitration</a>".</span><sup id="cite_ref-Giles2005_28-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-Giles2005-28" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[28]</a></sup><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> In response, lawyers have added provisions to consumer </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_form_contract" title="Standard form contract" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">contracts of adhesion</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> called "collective action waivers". In 1999 the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Arbitration_Forum" title="National Arbitration Forum" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">National Arbitration Forum</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> began advocating that such contracts should be drafted so as to force consumers to waive the right to a class action completely, and such provisions have become very popular among businesses.</span><sup id="cite_ref-Giles2005_28-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-Giles2005-28" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[28]</a></sup><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> As of November 2007, the legal validity of contracts of adhesion with class action waivers is unclear, and courts have rendered mixed and sometimes contradictory opinions.</span><sup id="cite_ref-29" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-29" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[29]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In the 2011 court case </span><i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Mobility_v.Concepcion" title="AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none rgb(255, 255, 102);">AT&T </a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Mobility_v.Concepcion" title="AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Mobility v. Concepcion</a></i><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.Supreme_Court" title="U.S. Supreme Court" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">U.S. Supreme Court</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> ruled in a 5–4 decision that the Federal Arbitration Act of 1925 preempts state laws that prohibit contracts from disallowing class action lawsuits, which will make it more difficult for consumers to file class action lawsuits. The dissent pointed to a saving clause in the federal act which allowed states to determine how a contract or its clauses may be revoked.</span><sup id="cite_ref-30" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-30" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[30]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In two major cases in the 21st century, the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> United States Supreme Court ruled 5-4 against certification of class actions due to differences in each individual members' circumstances; first in the 2011 case <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wal-Mart_v.Dukes" title="Wal-Mart v. Dukes" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Wal-Mart v. Dukes</a> and later in the 2013 case <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comcast_Corp.v.Behrend" title="Comcast Corp. v. Behrend" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Comcast</a></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comcast_Corp.v.Behrend" title="Comcast Corp. v. Behrend" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"> Corp. v. Behrend</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><sup id="cite_ref-31" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-31" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[31]</a></sup></font></p><h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); line-height: 1.3; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Advantages">Advantages</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px;">[</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Class_action&action=edit§ion=4" title="Edit section: Advantages" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px;">]</span></span></font></h2><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Class actions may offer a number of advantages<sup id="cite_ref-32" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-32" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[32]</a></sup> because they aggregate a large number of individualized claims into one representational<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawsuit" title="Lawsuit" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">lawsuit</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">First, aggregation can increase the efficiency of the legal process, and lower the costs of litigation.<sup id="cite_ref-33" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-33" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[33]</a></sup> In cases with common questions of law and fact, aggregation of claims into a class action may avoid the necessity of repeating "days of the same <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witnesses" title="Witnesses" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">witnesses</a>, <a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/exhibit" class="extiw" title="wikt:exhibit" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">exhibits</a> and issues from<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial(law)" title="Trial (law)" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">trial</a> to trial." <i>Jenkins v. Raymark Indus. Inc.</i>, 782 F.2d 468, 473 (5th Cir. 1986) (granting certification of a class action involving <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos" title="Asbestos" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">asbestos</a>).</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Second, a class action may overcome "the problem that small recoveries do not provide the incentive for any individual to bring a solo action prosecuting his or her rights." <i>Amchem Prods., Inc. v. Windsor</i>, 521 U.S. 591, 617 (1997) (quoting <i>Mace v. Van Ru Credit Corp.</i>, 109 F.3d 388, 344 (7th Cir. 1997)). "A class action solves this problem by aggregating the relatively paltry potential recoveries into something worth someone’s (usually an attorney’s) labor." <i>Amchem Prods., Inc.</i>, 521 U.S. at 617 (quoting <i>Mace</i>, 109 F.3d at 344). In other words, a class action ensures that a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defendant" title="Defendant" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">defendant</a> who engages in widespread harm – but does so minimally against each individual <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaintiff" title="Plaintiff" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">plaintiff</a> – must compensate those individuals for their injuries. For example, thousands of shareholders of a public company may have losses too small to justify separate lawsuits, but a class action can be brought efficiently on behalf of all shareholders. Perhaps even more important than compensation is that class treatment of claims may be the only way to impose the costs of wrongdoing on the wrongdoer, thus deterring future wrongdoing.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Third, class action cases may be brought to purposely change behavior of a class of which the defendant is a member. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landeros_v.Flood" title="Landeros v. Flood" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Landeros v. Flood</a>was a landmark case used to purposefully change the behavior of doctors, and encourage them to report suspected child abuse. Otherwise, they would face the threat of civil action for damages in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tort" title="Tort" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">tort</a> proximately flowing from the failure to report the suspected injuries. Previously, many physicians had remained reluctant to report cases of apparent child abuse, despite existing law that required it.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fourth, in "limited fund" cases, a class action ensures that all <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaintiff" title="Plaintiff" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">plaintiffs</a> receive relief and that early-filing plaintiffs do not raid the fund (<i>i.e.</i>, the<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defendant" title="Defendant" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">defendant</a>) of all its <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset" title="Asset" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">assets</a> before other <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaintiffs" title="Plaintiffs" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">plaintiffs</a> may be compensated. <i>See</i> <i>Ortiz v. Fibreboard Corp.</i>, 527 U.S. 815 (1999). A class action in such a situation centralizes all claims into one <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venue(law)" title="Venue (law)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">venue</a> where a court can equitably divide the assets amongst all the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaintiffs" title="Plaintiffs" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">plaintiffs</a> if they win the case.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Finally, a class action avoids the situation where different court rulings could create "incompatible standards" of conduct for the defendant to follow. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(1)(A). For example, a court might certify a case for class treatment where a number of individual bond-holders sue to determine whether they may convert their <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond(finance)" title="Bond (finance)" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">bonds</a> to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_stock" title="Common stock" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">common stock</a>. Refusing to litigate the case in one <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial(law)" title="Trial (law)" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">trial</a> could result in different outcomes and inconsistent standards of conduct for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defendant" title="Defendant" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">defendant</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation" title="Corporation" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">corporation</a>. Thus, courts will generally allow a class action in such a situation. <i>See, e.g., Van Gemert v. Boeing Co.</i>, 259 F. Supp. 125 (S.D.N.Y. 1966).</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Whether a class action is superior to individual <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litigation" title="Litigation" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">litigation</a> depends on the case and is determined by the judge's ruling on a motion for class certification. The Advisory Committee Note to Rule 23, for example, states that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_tort" title="Mass tort" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">mass torts</a> are ordinarily "not appropriate" for class treatment. Class treatment may not improve the efficiency of a mass tort because the claims frequently involve individualized issues of law and fact that will have to be re-tried on an individual basis. <i>See Castano v. Am. Tobacco Co.</i>, 84 F.3d 734 (5th Cir. 1996) (rejecting nationwide class action against tobacco companies). Mass torts also involve high individual damage awards; thus, the absence of class treatment will not impede the ability of individual claimants to seek justice. <i>See id.</i> Other cases, however, may be more conducive to class treatment.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The preamble to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_Action_Fairness_Act_of_2005" title="Class Action Fairness Act of 2005" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Class Action Fairness Act of 2005</a>, passed by the United States Congress, found:</font></p><blockquote style="overflow: hidden; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Class-action lawsuits are an important and valuable part of the legal system when they permit the fair and efficient resolution of legitimate claims of numerous parties by allowing the claims to be aggregated into a single action against a defendant that has allegedly caused harm.</font></p></blockquote><h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); line-height: 1.3; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Criticisms">Criticisms</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px;">[</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Class_action&action=edit§ion=5" title="Edit section: Criticisms" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px;">]</span></span></font></h2><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">There are several criticisms of class actions.<sup id="cite_ref-34" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-34" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[34]</a></sup> The preamble to the Class Action Fairness Act stated that some abusive class actions harmed class members with legitimate claims and defendants that have acted responsibly, adversely affected interstate commerce, and undermined public respect for the country's judicial system.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Class members often receive little or no benefit from class actions. Examples cited for this include large fees for the attorneys, while leaving class members with coupons or other awards of little or no value; unjustified awards are made to certain plaintiffs at the expense of other class members; and confusing notices are published that prevent class members from being able to fully understand and effectively exercise their rights.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For example, in the United States, class lawsuits sometimes bind all class members with a low <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settlement(law)" title="Settlement (law)" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">settlement</a>. These "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coupon_settlement" title="Coupon settlement" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">coupon settlements</a>" (which usually allow the plaintiffs to receive a small benefit such as a small check or a coupon for future services or products with the defendant company) are a way for a defendant to forestall major liability by precluding a large number of people from litigating their claims separately, to recover reasonable compensation for the damages. However, existing law requires judicial approval of all class action settlements, and in most cases class members are given a chance to opt out of class settlement, though class members, despite opt-out notices, may be unaware of their right to opt out because they did not receive the notice, did not read it, or did not understand it.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 addresses these concerns. Coupon settlements may be scrutinized by an independent expert before judicial approval in order to ensure that the settlement will be of value to the class members (28 U.S.C.A. 1712(d)). Further, if the action provides for settlement in coupons, "the portion of any attorney’s fee award to class counsel that is attributable to the award of the coupons shall be based on the value to class members of the coupons that are redeemed." 28 U.S.C.A. 1712(a).</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><i style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Wal-Mart v. Dukes</b></i><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Reports" title="United States Reports" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">564 U.S. __</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> (2011), was a </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States" title="Supreme Court of the United States" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">United States Supreme Court</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> case. The case was an appeal from the Ninth Circuit's decision in </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><i><b>Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.</b></i>, in which the Supreme Court, by a narrow 5-4 decision, reversed the district court's decision to certify a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action" title="Class action" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">class action</a> lawsuit in which the plaintiff class included 1.6 million women who currently work or have worked for Wal-Mart stores</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, including lead plaintiff Betty Dukes. Dukes, a current Wal-Mart employee, and others have alleged gender discrimination in pay and promotion policies and practices in Wal-Mart stores.</span><sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wal-Mart_Stores,Inc.v.Dukes#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[1]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The Court agreed to hear argument on whether a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Rule_of_Civil_Procedure" title="Federal Rule of Civil Procedure" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Federal Rule of Civil Procedure</a>, Rule 23(b)(2) that provides for class-actions where the defendant's actions make <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Injunction" title="Injunction" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">injunctive relief</a> appropriate can also be used to file a class-action that demands <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damages" title="Damages" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">monetary damages</a>. The Court also asked the parties to argue whether the class meets the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#U.S.federal_class_actions" title="Class action" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">traditional requirements</a> of numerosity, commonality, typicality, and adequacy of representation.<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wal-Mart_Stores,Inc.v.Dukes#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[2]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the class should not be certified in its current form, although they disagreed 5-4 on the reason and on allowing it to continue in a different form.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div id="toc" class="toc" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); 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background: none;">hide</a>] </span></div><ul style="line-height: 1.6; list-style-type: none; margin: 0.3em 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wal-Mart_Stores,Inc.v.Dukes#Background" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">1</span> <span class="toctext">Background</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wal-Mart_Stores,Inc.v.Dukes#Judgment" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">2</span> <span class="toctext">Judgment</span></font></a><ul style="line-height: 1.6; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wal-Mart_Stores,Inc.v.Dukes#Federal_District_Court" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">2.1</span> <span class="toctext">Federal District Court</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wal-Mart_Stores,Inc.v.Dukes#Court_of_Appeals" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">2.2</span> <span class="toctext">Court of Appeals</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wal-Mart_Stores,Inc.v.Dukes#Supreme_Court" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">2.3</span> <span class="toctext">Supreme Court</span></font></a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-6" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wal-Mart_Stores,Inc.v.Dukes#See_also" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">3</span> <span class="toctext">See also</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-7" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wal-Mart_Stores,Inc.v.Dukes#Notes" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">4</span> <span class="toctext">Notes</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-8" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wal-Mart_Stores,Inc.v.Dukes#External_links" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber">5</span> <span class="toctext">External links</span></font></a></li></ul></div><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">--</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">INDIA BHOPAL:</font></p><h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); line-height: 1.3; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="India">India</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px;">[</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Class_action&action=edit§ion=14" title="Edit section: India" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px;">]</span></span></font></h2><div class="hatnote relarticle mainarticle" style="font-style: italic; padding-left: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Main article: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Interest_Litigation" title="Public Interest Litigation" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Public Interest Litigation</a></font></div><div class="hatnote boilerplate seealso" style="font-style: italic; padding-left: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: -0.5em; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">See also: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_India" title="Constitution of India" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Constitution of India</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judiciary_of_India" title="Judiciary of India" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Judiciary of India</a></font></div><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Decisions of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Supreme_Court" title="Indian Supreme Court" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Indian Supreme Court</a> in the 1980s loosened strict <i>locus standi</i> requirements to permit the filing of suits on behalf of rights deprived sections of society by public minded individuals or bodies. Although not strictly "class action litigation" as it is understood in American law, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Interest_Litigation" title="Public Interest Litigation" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Public Interest Litigation</a> arose out of the wide powers of judicial review granted to the Supreme Court of India and the various High Courts under <a href="http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_India/Part_III#Article_32.7BRemedies_for_enforcement_of_rights_conferred_by_this_Part.7D" class="extiw" title="s:Constitution of India/Part III" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Article 32</a> and Article 226 of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_India" title="Constitution of India" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Constitution of India</a>, respectively. The sort of remedies sought from courts in Public Interest Litigation go beyond mere award of damages to all affected groups and have sometimes (controversially) gone on to include Court monitoring of the implementation of legislation and even the framing of guidelines in the absence of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_India" title="Parliament of India" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Parliamentary legislation</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-pil_48-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-pil-48" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[48]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-let_49-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#cite_note-let-49" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[49]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">However, this innovative jurisprudence did not help the victims of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_Gas_Tragedy" title="Bhopal Gas Tragedy" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Bhopal Gas Tragedy</a>,<sup class="noprint Inline-Template Template-Fact" style="line-height: 1; white-space: nowrap;">[<i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed" title="Wikipedia:Citation needed" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><span title="This claim needs references to reliable sources. (February 2013)">citation needed</span></a></i>]</sup> who were unable to fully prosecute a class action litigation (as understood in the American sense) against <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Carbide" title="Union Carbide" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Union Carbide</a> due to procedural rules that would make such litigation impossible to conclude and unwieldy to carry out. Instead, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_India" title="Government of India" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Government of India</a> exercised its right of parens patriae to appropriate all the claims of the victims and proceeded to litigate on their behalf, first in the New York courts and later, in the Indian courts. Ultimately, the matter was settled between the Union of India and Union Carbide (in a settlement overseen by the Supreme Court of India) for a sum of <span class="nowrap" style="white-space: nowrap;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_rupee" title="Indian rupee" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;"><img alt="INR" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ee/Indian_Rupee_symbol.svg/7px-Indian_Rupee_symbol.svg.png" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ee/Indian_Rupee_symbol.svg/11px-Indian_Rupee_symbol.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ee/Indian_Rupee_symbol.svg/14px-Indian_Rupee_symbol.svg.png 2x" data-file-width="512" data-file-height="754" style="border: none; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px;" height="10" width="7" /></a>760 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crore" title="Crore" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">crore</a></span>(US$120 million) as a complete settlement of all claims of all victims for all time to come.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">chamberwatch</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Generally, plaintiffs’ attorneys represent consumers and workers to help them seek compensation in court for injuries caused by alleged corporate wrongdoing. In the late 1990s, the Chamber launched a well-financed campaign to </span><a href="http://www.businessweek.com/stories/1998-03-01/chamber-of-commerce-battle-cry-kill-all-the-lawyers" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; -webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; line-height: 18px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">malign plaintiffs’ attorneys</a><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> as part of a wider crusade to implement national and international policies that shield corporations from lawsuits. </span><br style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><br style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 1998, the Chamber founded the Institute for Legal Reform (ILR), now the largest sub-group within the Chamber. </span><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">More than half of the $44 million the ILR raised in 2012 came from just 21 large donors, with an </span><a href="http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/pressroomredirect.cfm?ID=4080" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; -webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; line-height: 18px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">average donation of more than $450,000</a><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. The Chamber does its anti-consumer work </span><a href="http://www.instituteforlegalreform.com/uploads/sites/1/2013_12.11_CFPB-arbitration_cover_letter.pdf" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; -webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; line-height: 18px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">through the ILR</a><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> and through its </span><a href="http://www.instituteforlegalreform.com/issues/arbitration" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; -webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; line-height: 18px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Coalition to Preserve Arbitration</b></a><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>, led by AT&T and comprising trade associations in finance, insurance, car sales and other industries</b> where contracts are complicated and companies often have an advantage in information and expertise. </span><br style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><br style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">One of the ILR’s apparent goals is to further entrench the use of pre-dispute binding </span><a href="http://www.instituteforlegalreform.com/uploads/sites/1/2013_12.11_CFPB-arbitration_cover_letter.pdf" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; -webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; line-height: 18px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">arbitration</a><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> clauses in corporate contracts with consumers and employees. The clauses deny individuals’ right their day in court and require them instead to resolve disputes with corporations in private arbitration proceedings. The ILR funds research that attempts to support the claim that consumers do better in arbitration than in the courts, but more credible research shows that </span><a href="http://www.citizen.org/publications/publicationredirect.cfm?ID=7545" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; -webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; line-height: 18px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">consumers </a><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">and </span><a href="http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1586&context=articles" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; -webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; line-height: 18px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">employees</a><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">are less successful </span><a href="http://www.citizen.org/congress/article_redirect.cfm?ID=7332" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; -webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; line-height: 18px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">in arbitration</a><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> than in the courts. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has found that </span><a href="http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2013/12/consumer-agency-finds-arbitration-agreements-unpopular-confusing.html" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; -webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; line-height: 18px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">arbitration</a><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> clauses are prevalent in financial services contracts and that very few consumers use arbitration to resolve financial disputes. Arbitration is an unpopular choice for consumers because it tends to create an unbalanced playing field that favors corporations. </span><br style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><br style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Arbitration clauses in consumer contracts frequently forbid consumers from participating in class actions against the company. As a result, consumer disputes with companies can be arbitrated only on an individual basis, a method that is often impractical because the individual amount at stake is often small, even where the corporation’s total benefit from the challenged conduct is significant. That means consumers are increasingly unable to challenge wrongful corporate conduct. And if consumers can’t seek redress, companies do not have to answer for predatory or illegal practices. </span><br style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><br style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The ILR also works to place articles on “cases and actions that portend to have an impact on business” in widely read publications through its media outfit, </span><a href="http://legalnewsline.com/about" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; -webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; line-height: 18px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">the Legal Newsline</a><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, founded in 2006. </span><br style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><br style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="line-height: 18px;">Further<b>, 39 states elect their high court judges,</b> and from 2001 to 2003, for example, </span><a href="http://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2012/08/pdf/statecourts.pdf" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; -webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">the candidate backed by the Chamber won 21 of 24 judicial elections</a><span style="line-height: 18px;">. In 2004, </span><a href="http://prospect.org/article/under-influence" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; -webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; line-height: 18px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">the Chamber-backed candidate won 12 of 13 state Supreme Court races</a><span style="line-height: 18px;">. </span></span><br style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><br style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Chamber gives financial support to the campaigns of state judges it views as aligned with its interests and attacks judges that it views as opposed to its priorities. Business groups spent about </span><a href="http://prospect.org/article/under-influence" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; -webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; line-height: 18px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$26.2 million</a><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> in races between 2000 and 2009, and the Chamber was a major player. In 2000, for example, the Mississippi chief justice, whom the Chamber supported but who was concerned about out-of-state influence on the state elections, </span><a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/06/13/12793/dc-based-groups-bombarded-state-high-court-races-ads" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; -webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; line-height: 18px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">asked the Chamber to stop running ads for her</a><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> — but the Chamber ignored her request. </span><br style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><br style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Chamber-identified ads disappeared in the 2002 Mississippi election season, but similar ads were run by the Law Enforcement Alliance of America (LEAA). The LEAA’s donors are secret, but Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz suspected the Chamber was still at work, </span><a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/06/13/12793/dc-based-groups-bombarded-state-high-court-races-ads" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; -webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; line-height: 18px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">saying</a><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, “The ads that the U.S. Chamber ran against me in 2000 were extremely similar [to the ones] that the LEAA ran against me in 2008.” The Chamber </span><a href="http://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/CampaignCriminalCash-6.pdf" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; -webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; line-height: 18px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">had run highly negative ads</a><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, including accusing Justice Diaz of “voting for drug dealers and baby killers.” </span><br style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><br style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Judges who are running for reelection do keep in mind what the next 30-second ad is going to look like,” </span><a href="http://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/CampaignCriminalCash-6.pdf" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; -webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; line-height: 18px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Justice Diaz said</a><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. </span><a href="http://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/CampaignCriminalCash-6.pdf" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; -webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; line-height: 18px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A 2013 report</a><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> by the Center for American Progress found that as campaign cash in judicial elections has increased, courts have begun to rule more often in favor of prosecutors and against criminal defendants. </span><br style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><br style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Fewer numbers are available now than when the wave of spending began around 2000. The Chamber’s state high court spending is </span><a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/06/13/12793/dc-based-groups-bombarded-state-high-court-races-ads" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; -webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; line-height: 18px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">becoming increasingly difficult to trace</a><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, as observers, including former state supreme court justices, believe it has turned increasingly to spending money through opaque third-party organizations like the LEAA. Additionally, </span><a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/06/13/12793/dc-based-groups-bombarded-state-high-court-races-ads" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; -webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; line-height: 18px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">as the Center for Public Integrity notes</a><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, “Tracking all outside spending is nearly impossible thanks to lax state disclosure rules, as well as a loophole in the federal tax code that allows politically active nonprofits to run attack ads without disclosing who funds them.” </span><br style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><b><br style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In a 2002 speech to the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, U.S. Chamber President Tom Donohue gave some insight into the rise of the Chamber's involvement in judicial elections. Taking aim at trial lawyers who successfully litigated class action lawsuits for people harmed by asbestos and tobacco companies, </span><a href="http://www.justiceatstake.org/media/cms/JASNPJEDecadeONLINE_8E7FD3FEB83E3.pdf" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; -webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s ease, border 0.2s ease, color 0.2s ease, opacity 0.2s ease-in-out; line-height: 18px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">he said</a></b><span style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>, “Our approach is simple — implement a multi-front strategy of challenging these unscrupulous trial lawyers every time they poke their head out of the ground. </b>… On the political front, we’re going to get involved in key state Supreme Court and attorney general races as part of our effort to elect pro-legal reform judicial candidates.... We’re clearly engaged in hand-to-hand combat, and we’ve got to step it up if we’re going to survive.” </span><br style="line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How Karl Rove Ran Mark Kennedy Off the Supreme Court</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kennedy, the son-in-law of George Wallace himself, was the first state Supreme Court Justice targeted by Karl Rove, who came to work for a University of Alabama Law School professor named Harold See at the behest of the Business Council of Alabama. It was and is still run by Bill Canary who had worked as a political operative for George H.W. Bush. We haven’t seen much of Canary since he was named prominently in all the stories about the <a href="http://blog.locustfork.net/category/don-siegelman-on-trial/" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important;">political prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman</a>.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kennedy actually beat Rove and his candidate in that first race, barely, but he was so shaken by the dirty campaign tactics that he decided not to seek another term and face Rove again in 1998. He retired, but finally agreed in 2010 to get back into politics as head of the Alabama Democratic Party.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I caught up with him at an AFL-CIO convention in Prattville last fall and got him to tell me the story of what Karl Rove did to him. You can see the interview in the <a href="http://youtu.be/KAy_af3JGds" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important;">video</a> above.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Before being elected to the state Supreme Court, Kennedy served as a juvenile judge and family-court judge, where he saw the negative plight of abused children who ended up in the justice system. In light of his experiences, he helped start the Children’s Trust Fund of Alabama and later the Corporate Foundation for Children and served as president of the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse and Neglect.<b> Kennedy’s campaign commercials showed his volunteer work, and included pictures of him holding hands with children he had helped.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Rove took those innocent pictures and, in the early days of the Internet, got Republican operatives at the University of Alabama Law School and the secretive, conservative <a href="http://blog.locustfork.net/2012/02/federalist-society-hears-from-conservative-voter-suppression-expert/" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important;">Federalist Society</a> to e-mail around an attack ad claiming Kennedy was a gay pedophile</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. It was not unlike the “whispering campaign” he used in Texas to get Bush elected over Ann Richards, who he accused of being a lesbian in similar fashion.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Karl Rove is a expert at turning what you believe to be your strongest suit into being your worst nightmare, kind of like the Swiftboat ads,” Kennedy said. “He accused me of being a pedophile.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Rove also exaggerated the issue of large jury awards and turned “</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">tort reform</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">” into a campaign issue, accusing judges like Kennedy of being “too liberal” and guilty of “jackpot justice.</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">” With those misleading tactics, he managed to take over the Texas and Alabama appellate court systems by getting pro-big business Republicans elected. <b>Over time the Alabama Supreme Court and the Court of Civil Appeals became a “no win zone” for any average Alabamian seeking justice for a grievance against any corporate entity that wronged them. Big insurance companies loved this, so they chipped in millions to Rove’s campaigns</b>after that and still support him to this day in a big way.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While it is clear that even if there was an imbalance in the court system in favor of juries granting too much to defendants in trials in those days, the pendulum has swung way too far back in the other direction, and nobody in the mainstream media is telling that story.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So in the process of investigating this, to show how imbalanced the courts have become, we caught up with a Montgomery woman named Jo Ann Shiver. She is also interviewed in the <a href="http://youtu.be/KAy_af3JGds" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important;">video</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How the Supreme Court Came Up With ‘Sovereign Immunity’ for Hospitals</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Shiver’s mother was killed by a deadly staph infection she caught in a Baptist hospital that was ignored and even covered up by the hospital staff.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Her sister filed a lawsuit against the Montgomery hospital and actually managed to win a jury verdict in the lower court. But the case was thrown out by the state Supreme Court, by the judges Rove and his brand of dirty politics were instrumental in electing to the bench.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ms. Shiver said she has no doubt politics played a role in the case. “Follow the money,” she said.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">You could research the court dockets in this state and find hundreds of cases like this where justice was clearly not done. But this one is so strange it deserves special attention.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In this case, not only did the justices throw out the jury verdict and the award for damages. They actually set a precedent that unless reversed soon will result in thousands of unnecessary deaths by unaccountable doctors and hospitals. Here again, the<b> University of Alabama</b> plays a critical role in this part of the saga.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Montgomery hospital had entered into a management agreement with the university on paper to handle some of the accounting due to some financial problems they were having, and as a result, the Supreme Court ruled that the hospital was a legal entity of the state and could not be sued under an old English Common Law tenant known as “Sovereign Immunity.” You could not sue the King in a Monarchy, and under certain circumstances, you can’t sue the state even today.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But somehow I doubt that even those who wrote the language for the English law would have envisioned a day when sovereign immunity would cover a private, for profit hospital owned by a church.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The court vacated a $3.2 million jury verdict in favor of the family</b> of Lauree Durden Ellison. She died Nov. 8, 2005, after a stay at Baptist Medical Center East in Montgomery. She developed a staph infection from the hospital, but the church-state hospital administrators refused further treatment and denied liability or responsibility.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“They said she slipped through the cracks,” Ms. Shiver said, nearly tearing up.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I have searched high and low for an independent legal expert who could address this situation with insight. But so far, apparently the precedent is so strange that no one knows anything about it. It truly is one of those times when you have to throw up your hands and say, “only in Alabama.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Nobody knows the consequences of that opinion. It goes where no one has gone before,” Mark White, a former president of the Alabama Bar Association, told a Tuscaloosa newspaper reporter last year in one of the few news stories on the case to get reported in Alabama. No national news organization has touched the story.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Then-Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb, the one Democrat on the court at the time who dissented in the case, said although Baptist Health retains an interest in its assets that are managed by the UAB health care authority, the court’s decision means the hospital is no longer “legally responsible for the harm that may be caused by its negligence.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Shouldn’t a hospital be responsible if they cut the wrong leg off?” Ms. Shiver asks. “It gives them license to be negligent.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">William Powell, an attorney for a friend-of-the-court group, said sovereign immunity is a powerful legal-protection device.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“You can only sue the king if the king lets you,” he said.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Alabama Association for Justice and the<b> <a href="http://www.alaflcio.com/" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important;">Alabama AFL-CIO</a> h</b>ave asked the court to grant a rehearing in the case, but so far, the high court has been non-responsive.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Morris Lilienthal, a trial lawyer in North Alabama who has reviewed the Ellison case, said the decision overreaches in a major way.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s going to have dramatic effects on the law in Alabama,” he said.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The effect, in essence, is that all the health systems in Alabama, which already have “unbelievable, overreaching” protections under the Alabama Medical Liability Act, “may just be totally immune” from negligence or wrongful death claims from now on, Lilienthal said. “The doctors and staff there now have compete immunity from any accident.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Law as a Check on Greed</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The law is supposed to be a leveler for and a check on “corporations out just for greed and money” and has made the world a safer place, he said. Even doctors should admit if they operate on the wrong limb of someone or leave medical instruments in a person and cause harm, for example, they should be held to a certain standard and be held accountable.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Ellison case sets up a scenario where they are no longer held to a standard and are immune from any accountability. “It’s certainly not fair,” he said.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tom Edwards, who ran for a state Supreme Court slot in 2010 as a Democrat and lost, said the Ellison case is a “clear example of how our Supreme Court will go out of its way to protect big business.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When asked if he thought Rove’s takeover of the courts ended up creating a big corporation protection bureau and destroyed constitutional jury rights, making it impossible for average folks to get justice in the court system, he said: “That’s exactly what happened.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“They do it very systematically,” he said. “The decision uses strained logic to set a legal precedent that grants state sovereign immunity to a private, profit-making operation competing in the private sector. It was a way for them to go out of their way to protect the medical industry.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another one of Rove’s tactics is to get his clients to rail against “activist liberal judges” who “legislate from the bench” to protect minorities and such.</font></b></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But no one ever seems seems to talk about “activist conservative judges” who legislate from the bench to protect big corporations.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Ellison case, Edwards said, is an example of “an activist court of an extreme nature. They write new laws from the bench every Friday, and they protect big corporations over the citizens of Alabama.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Of course many doctors, hospitals, their PACs and their insurance carriers give millions of dollars in campaign contributions every year, mostly to Republicans.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now ask yourself if your vote matters. If a hospital killed your mother, would you not want to sue somebody? Apparently you can’t do that anymore in Alabama.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For average working folks to vote Republican is “absolutely against their economic interest,” according to union officials such as Al Henley of the Alabama AFL-CIO and <a href="http://blog.locustfork.net/2011/06/why-do-working-class-people-vote-against-their-economic-interests/" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important;">Auburn History Professor Wayne Flynt</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition, Lienthall added, most states have a tort claims act on the books where state entities can be held liable. But not in Alabama, he said, which is still operating under an outdated constitution written in 1901, updated in election years by constitutional amendments placed on the ballot at election time — and by judges. Those judges are elected as partisans who must raise millions in campaign contributions to get elected to jobs that qualify them for state retirement benefits — subsidized by the taxpayers, citizens who no longer possess full citizenship since they have no right to sue for damages or render judgements against corporations from the jury box.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Legal experts agree that where legislatures and courts intercede on these rights they violate the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important;">Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet again, Karl Rove and his clients are getting away with trampling on the constitution — seemingly without challenge. Only on the Web Press.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Why is it that the people who are getting screwed the worst keep voting for them?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time,” Lincoln said.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Unless you can convince them all to get their news from talk radio and Fox.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important;"><small style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Karl Rove at a book signing in</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Birmingham with<b> William “Bill” Pryor</b> who President George W. Bush appointed to the U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta as a political payoff for beginning the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Rove denied even knowing Pryor in a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, even though he ran his campaign for Attorney General of Alabama in 1998. When Pryor greeted Rove at this event at Brookwood Mall, he said, “Hey bud,” and they hugged.</span></font></small></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ms. Shiver has written a letter to the University of Alabama Board of Trustees asking about a conflict of interest and an ethics problem with the hospital arrangement, but she has never received a response. You can read her letter below.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 23.625px; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2012 <a href="http://blog.locustfork.net/" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important;">Glynn Wilson</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; border-width: 0px !important; background-image: none !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="line-height: 23.625px;"><a href="http://blog.locustfork.net/2012/10/how-karl-rove-took-over-the-alabama-supreme-court-and-created-a-no-win-zone-for-citizens/">http://blog.locustfork.net/2012/10/how-karl-rove-took-over-the-alabama-supreme-court-and-created-a-no-win-zone-for-citizens/</a></span></font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">info source:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><h2 class="yiv8822244868null" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 32.5px; outline: none; letter-spacing: -0.75px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://insideclimatenews.us2.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=7d29f3845a&e=06876ede6b" style="line-height: 1.2em; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word; font-weight: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Exxon Fighting to Keep Public From Seeing 900,000 Pages of Documents in Oil Spill Lawsuit</font></a></h2><p style="margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Oil giant ExxonMobil is seeking "unprecedented secrecy" by labeling nearly 900,000 pages of documents as confidential in a class action lawsuit over an oil pipeline rupture in Arkansas, an attorney said in a new court filing.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 22.5px; outline: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="line-height: 1.2em; outline: none;"><span style="line-height: 1.2em; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://insideclimatenews.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=538aac70c2&e=06876ede6b" style="line-height: 1.2em; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Read more</a>.</font></span></span></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
alec;
</font><div id="main">
<ul id="related-news" class="news-page"><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="title" href="http://www.alec.org/model-legislation/regulatory-class-action-reform-act/">Regulatory Class Action Reform Act</a>
<cite>March 15, 2013</cite>
</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Summary Regulatory class actions—in which plaintiff attorneys seek
not only to win large monetary awards, but also to regulate the
marketplace and manage relations between regulated firms and
consumers—empower private attorneys with personal agendas to act as de
facto regulators. [...]</font></p>
</li></ul>
</div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; line-height: 150%">
<font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The
Chamber's lawyers successfully got the Supreme Court to make it
harder for victims of corporate negligence to <a href="http://record-eagle.com/business/x2113334878/Court-makes-it-harder-to-sue-businesses" target="_blank">sue
for damages</a>,</span> whether they are claimants in the BP oil spill or
employees of corporations filing class-action
lawsuits in
cases of abuse. They recently ruled in favor of agribusiness
giant <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/13/monsanto-patent-grain-biotechnology-soybeans-supreme-court/2116333/" target="_blank">Monsanto</a> in
a seed patent case against a farmer trying to save his seeds, ruling
that Monsanto had the right to claim domain over the farmer's crops,
since their genetically-modified seeds had cross-pollinated into the
neighboring organic crops on the farmer's plot. <b><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/02/monsanto.html" target="_blank">Justice
Clarence Thomas</a> once worked as a corporate attorney for
Monsanto. He did not recuse himself from the decision. He also didn't
recuse himself when ruling against the constitutionality of the
Affordable Care Act, despite his wife's having <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/14/nation/la-na-thomas14-2010mar14" target="_blank">launched
a lobbying group</a> opposed to the Affordable Care Act's
implementation.</b></font></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; line-height: 150%"><font color="#000000" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; border: none; padding: 0in; line-height: 150%"><font color="#000000" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>=</b></font></p><p style="list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BP CEO Bob Dudley says the “biggest beneficiaries” of an agreement related to the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill disaster aren't the victims, but their lawyers.</font></p><p style="list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/100920845" target="hplink" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;">interview with CNBC Tuesday</a>, Dudley said the U.S. class-action system has become an “industry” ripe with financial incentives that make plaintiffs’ lawyers eager to bring claims. “This is not right, it’s not good for American business,”<a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/100920845" target="hplink" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;">Dudley said</a>. “It happens all the time in the US with this class action plaintiff system, which is an industry and a business model.”</font></p><p style="list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The comments come as the oil giant is <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/100920845" target="hplink" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;">appealing parts of its multi-billion settlement</a> to compensate oil spill victims, claiming that it’s being “misinterpreted” and that officials are paying out exaggerated or in some cases false claims. The<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/12/business/energy-environment/bp-appealing-settlement-on-gulf-disaster-payments.html?pagewanted=all&r=0" target="hplink" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;">victims’ lawyers</a> have argued in response that the company is merely trying to back away from last year's agreement.</font></p><p style="list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since the <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/100920845" target="hplink" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;">company’s victim compensation fund is dwindling</a> and any payouts that go beyond the fund will hit BP’s future profits, it's in Dudley's interest to claim lawyers are taking advantage of the settlement. But a <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-06-27/how-bp-got-screwed-on-gulf-oil-spill-claims" target="hplink" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;">Businessweek story from earlier this year</a> adds weight to Dudley's central argument.</font></p><p style="list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the wake of the settlement, <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-06-27/how-bp-got-screwed-on-gulf-oil-spill-claims" target="hplink" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;">the magazine reported that plaintiffs' attorneys</a>"swarmed onto the scene" to file claims for clients, who in some cases live relatively far from the site of the spill. One lawyer admitted to the magazine that he filed a claim for a client to win damages on a revenue drop that "had nothing to do with the spill."</font></p><p style="list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; line-height: 21px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Class-action controversies have popped up elsewhere. In one <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/civil/settlement-of-class-action-debt-relief-suit-criticized/1215309" target="hplink" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;">class-action suit filed in Tampa Bay, Fla.,</a> last year, the plaintiffs stood to get no money, while their lawyers could have earned up to $300,000 in legal fees, according to the Tampa Bay Times.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">huffpo</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); line-height: 1.3; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Breast_implant_controversy">Breast implant controversy</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px;">[</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dow_Corning&action=edit§ion=3" title="Edit section: Breast implant controversy" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px;">]</span></span></font></h2><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action" title="Class action" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">class-action</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawsuit" title="Lawsuit" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">lawsuits</a><sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dow_Corning#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[2]</a></sup> claimed that Dow Corning's silicone <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breast_implant" title="Breast implant" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">breast implants</a> caused systemic health problems. The claims first centered around <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breast_cancer" title="Breast cancer" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">breast cancer</a>, and then migrated to a range of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoimmunity" title="Autoimmunity" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">autoimmune diseases</a>, including <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemic_lupus_erythematosus" title="Systemic lupus erythematosus" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">lupus</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheumatoid_arthritis" title="Rheumatoid arthritis" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">rheumatoid arthritis</a> and various neurological problems. This led to numerous lawsuits beginning in 1984 and culminating in a </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">1998 multibillion dollar <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action" title="Class action" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">class action</a> settlement</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. As a result, Dow Corning was in </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy" title="Bankruptcy" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">bankruptcy</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">protection for nine years, ending in June 2004.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">A number of large, independent reviews of the scientific literature, including the U.S. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Medicine" title="Institute of Medicine" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Institute of Medicine</a>, have subsequently found that silicone breast implants do not appear to cause breast cancers or any identifiable systemic disease.<sup id="cite_ref-nyt_3-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dow_Corning#cite_note-nyt-3" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[3]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-frontline_4-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dow_Corning#cite_note-frontline-4" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[4]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-5-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dow_Corning#cite_note--5" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[5]</a></sup></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
most feared 2014
</font><ol><li><a href="http://www.law360.com/firms/bernstein-litowitz"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP</font></a></li><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.law360.com/firms/cohen-milstein">Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC</a> –
“In February the firm inked a $275 million settlement with the Royal
Bank of Scotland Group PLC over its RMBS deals, one of the top-five
class action accords for soured MBS transactions.”</font></li><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.law360.com/firms/gibbs-bruns">Gibbs & Bruns LLP</a> –
“In January, a New York state judge finalized an $8.5 billion cash
settlement the firm struck with Bank of America to end claims tied to
530 troubled residential mortgage-backed securities trusts packaged and
sold by BofA subsidiary Countrywide Financial Corp.”</font></li><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.law360.com/firms/grant-eisenhofer">Grant & Eisenhofer PA</a> –
“In September 2013, the firm, serving as co-counsel to a Michigan
pension fund in a derivative suit, reached an agreement with Oracle
Corp.’s billionaire founder and chief executive Larry Ellison, who
agreed to fork over roughly $440 million he and his associates made from
a transaction in which Oracle bought another company Ellison owned.”</font></li><li><a href="http://www.law360.com/firms/labaton-sucharow"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Labaton Sucharow LLP</font></a></li><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The <a href="http://www.law360.com/firms/lanier-law-firm">Lanier Law Firm PLLC</a></font></li><li><a href="http://www.law360.com/firms/lieff-cabraser"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP</font></a></li><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.law360.com/firms/robbins-geller">Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP</a> –
“The firm won the largest judgment following a securities class action
trial, when in October 2013 an Illinois federal judge imposed a nearly
$2.5 billion order against Household International Inc. and three former
executives.”</font></li><li><a href="http://www.law360.com/firms/robins-kaplan"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Robins Kaplan Miller & Ciresi LLP</font></a></li><li><a href="http://www.law360.com/firms/susman-godfrey"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Susman Godfrey LLP</font></a></li></ol><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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