U.S. Chamber Takes Aim At Trial Lawyers Tort, Product-Liability, Workplace Bias Laws Targeted

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is getting ready to launch a multimillion-dollar assault against some longtime foes: the nation’s trial lawyers.

Starting early next year, Washington’s largest business lobbying group will ask member corporations to contribute to a full-bore attack on tort and product-liability laws, an attack that could threaten the livelihoods of thousands of plaintiffs’ lawyers. Additionally, the chamber for the first time will target employee-bias litigation, a growth area for many of these lawyers.

“We’ve decided to broaden our traditional approach to include workplace issues,” said Larry Kraus, the Chamber’s senior vice president, who will orchestrate the effort. “Whenever an employee is dismissed these days, they find some reason to sue. A lot of those suits have merit, but many are frivolous, and battling those suits is an enormous expense.”

Business interests and trial lawyers have been warring for years to determine which rules will govern courtroom fights between plaintiffs and the corporations they sue. The coffers of politicians have been among the biggest winners in this fight, with Republicans amply rewarded for their support of corporations and Democrats the main beneficiaries of contributions by trial lawyers.

The Chamber and the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA), the group representing the country’s plaintiffs’ lawyers, have long been considered lobbying powerhouses.

The Chamber of Commerce campaign, still a work in progress, comes at a time when lawyers and their fees are again hot topics on Capitol Hill. One sticking point of the global tobacco deal, which needs congressional approval, is how much of the proposed $368 billion settlement will be pocketed by lawyers who helped hammer it out. And lawmakers will soon debate legislation that could alter the legal liability of corporations in defective-product lawsuits.

Officials at ATLA said in a statement Thursday that they were not surprised that the Chamber was asking insurance, tobacco and manufacturing giants to finance what they called an “anti-consumer” propaganda campaign.

“These corporations are the same folks who have spent literally billions of dollars trying to protect themselves and their profits from the people they hurt,” ATLA President Richard D. Hailey said in the statement. “Americans believe in personal and corporate responsibility, and they will not be fooled by this self-serving effort to convince them that profits are more important than the lives and safety of American families.”

The Chamber of Commerce’s Kraus said the group will get its money from its 200,000 member corporations but will not solicit or accept funds from the tobacco industry.

Much of the money raised will be spent lobbying state legislatures. Employee-bias litigation tops the list of the group’s concerns because 75 percent of lawsuits involving businesses come from workers who sue after being fired, Kraus contends.

“In 1996, there were 23,000 employee-bias cases filed in federal courts,” Kraus said. “That’s nearly double the figures from 1992.”

The group also intends to redouble its push for “loser pays” rules, a reform that proponents say cuts down on frivolous lawsuits by requiring the loser in a civil action to pay the legal bills for both sides.