Furthering Asbestos Claim Transparency (FACT) Act of 2017

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 180 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on House Resolution 180, currently under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to bring forward this rule on behalf of the Rules Committee. The rule provides for consideration of H.R. 720, the Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act, and H.R. 985, the Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act.

The rule provides for 1 hour of debate for each bill, equally divided between the chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. The rule also provides for a motion to recommit for both pieces of underlying legislation.

Yesterday, the Rules Committee had the opportunity to hear from Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte and Congressman Steve Cohen on behalf of the Judiciary Committee, as well as Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law Ranking Member Hank Johnson.

The Rules Committee made in order 12 amendments total--four amendments to H.R. 720 and eight amendments to H.R. 985, representing ideas from both sides of the aisle.

I want to thank Chairman Goodlatte and the Judiciary Committee staff for their work on both pieces of legislation. I am a member of the Judiciary Committee, and we had the opportunity to consider both pieces of legislation and enjoyed lively discussion at the markup for both bills.

Mr. Speaker, as you are aware, we have worked tirelessly in this House to pass litigation reforms that would promote access to the courts for all Americans and ensure that the cost of litigation isn't used as a tool to force settlements.

We have also talked about how to restore reason and remove burdens on hardworking Americans. These bills help us achieve those goals.

Both bills have enjoyed thorough discussion at both the committee level and on the floor, both in this Congress and in previous Congresses.

H.R. 720, the Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act, was introduced by my friend from Texas, Congressman Lamar Smith. Similar legislation to H.R. 720 has passed the House before, and I look forward to its consideration again.

This legislation provides a balanced solution to frivolous lawsuits, based on the simple principle that if an attorney files a baseless lawsuit that has no grounding in fact or law, the attorney should have to compensate the victim of their legal action.

This legislation does not change the standard for rule 11 sanctions; it simply gives this important rule some teeth by making sanctions mandatory instead of discretionary.

Opponents will argue that this bill will stifle robust examinations of existing law by discouraging otherwise meritorious lawsuits.

To be certain, LARA does not change in any way the existing standards for determining what is and what is not a frivolous lawsuit, as determined under rule 11. In fact, LARA expressly provides that ``nothing in'' the changes made to rule 11 ``shall be construed to bar or impede the assertion or development of new claims, defenses, or remedies under Federal, State, or local laws, including civil rights laws, or under the Constitution of the United States.''

H.R. 985, the Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act, was introduced by Chairman Goodlatte. This legislation now also includes the Furthering Asbestos Claims Transparency, or FACT, Act, authored by Congressman Farenthold from Texas.

H.R. 985 provides a targeted solution to a unique problem. At its core, the bill addresses whether the injury suffered by named plaintiffs in a class action suit accurately reflects injuries suffered by the class.

Let me be clear, again, this bill does not kill the class action. Opponents would have you believe that it does, but these claims have become a knee-jerk reaction to attempts to address clear abuses in the legal system.

We want to make the system work for victims of these abuses and of other injustices. We want to make it more difficult for anyone to take advantage of the courts and make legal recourse more accessible for those who genuinely deserve relief.

As a case in point, when Congress passed the Class Action Fairness Act, CAFA, in 2005, opponents claimed that its passage would mean the end of class action suits. Actually, it had two targeted goals: to reduce abusive forum-shopping by plaintiffs and, in certain circumstances, to require greater Federal scrutiny procedures throughout the review of class action settlements.

For example, you may remember an infamous Alabama class action involving Bank of Boston in which the attorneys' fees exceeded the relief to the class members. As a result, class members lost money paying attorneys for their legal victory.

Twelve years ago, opponents of CAFA made virtually identical arguments against that reform that they are making against H.R. 985 today. These objections are unsupported by history.

In fact, researchers at the Federal Judicial Center conducted a study on the impact of CAFA and concluded that--postenactment--there was an increase in the number of class actions filed in or removed to the Federal courts based on diversity jurisdiction, consistent with the congressional intent behind that law.

We see that necessary reforms have resulted in a class action option that is alive and well, representing an important part of our legal system. And it

will remain that way. Claims to the contrary, Mr. Speaker, are just simply inaccurate.

H.R. 985 is a targeted solution that says a Federal court may not certify a proposed class unless the party seeking the class action demonstrates through admissible evidentiary proof that each proposed class member suffered an injury of the same type and extent as the injury of the named class representative or representatives.

This requirement also exists in rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Unfortunately, not all courts appropriately interpret or apply these standards.

To claim that this bill, which codifies existing standards, would kill class action suits is just simply not supported by facts.

Class actions exist for a reason, a reason vindicated both by compassion and by wisdom. The class action option exists to allow a group of individuals who have been similarly harmed to join together to seek appropriate compensation for their injuries.

In today's world, we see abuse after abuse of that legitimate purpose. As a result, we have seen the rise of a class of people who may bear legitimate injuries, but we also see countless others who have suffered no injury at all yet are vying for class action spoils to which they have no right. The no-injury class actions are designed to exploit companies to achieve a quick payday through accusations that are not grounded in genuine injuries.

Class actions should be preserved as a tool for those who are harmed to plead their case and receive just compensation. H.R. 985 will allow courts to focus their resources on cases in which the people have actually suffered injuries. This helps ensure that we hold responsible parties accountable for their actions.

As I mentioned, H.R. 985 also includes the Furthering Asbestos Claims Transparency, or FACT, Act. The FACT Act is designed to reduce fraud and compensation claims for asbestos-related diseases. This is a critical step to preserving resources for true victims because, unfortunately, double-dipping has become too common in asbestos claims.

For every dollar awarded to fraudulent claims, there is $1 less available to true victims who are facing mesothelioma or other asbestos-related illnesses. These victims are often those to whom our country owes its greatest debt: our veterans. Veterans currently comprise 9 percent of the population, yet they make up approximately 30 percent of the asbestos victims. Veterans are uniquely positioned to benefit from the increased transparency that this bill offers.

Despite the positive impact that increased transparency can have for veterans, detractors claim that the legislation will negatively impact the privacy rights of claimants. Allow me to be clear, Mr. Speaker: this is not true. The bill actually requires far less personal information from claimants than State courts currently require in their disclosure documents.

This legislation will reduce fraud in the asbestos trust system to safeguard assets in order to compensate future asbestos victims, veterans or otherwise.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 985 and H.R. 720 will establish meaningful reforms to our litigation system. I believe the United States is the greatest country in the world, and our justice system is designed to be free and fair, yet we have seen our justice system abused by people who seek ill gain at the expense of actual victims. These bills that today's rule provides for help us to right that wrong. They may not be perfect, but they recognize existing flaws in the system and strive to fix those flaws to better serve the American public.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Sometimes it is often said that we discuss the issues that come to the floor, and there are real debates taking place across the street right now dealing with our discussions around health care. But I want to go back to actually the bills that we are dealing with in the rule and discuss the part of where do sometimes these issues come from, especially when we are discussing things like H.R. 985 and class act litigation.

This came, actually, from outside the walls here and outside into the real world where this is being practiced. One of the things that is happening is that Federal judges have been looking to Congress to reform the class action system which currently allows lawyers to fill classes with hundreds of thousands of unmeritorious claims and use the artificially inflated classes to force defendants to settle the case.

As the Supreme Court has recognized, ``even a small chance of a devastating loss'' inherent in most decisions to certify a class produces an ``in terrorem'' interim effect that often forces settlement independent of merits of the case.

Mr. Speaker, I understand that fear because what we are dealing with many times in these class actions--and I know the Speaker and others are aware--is the definition of the class that really depends on the case itself, not as much of the merits of the case because of the potential of a devastating loss. So the actual class certification becomes something that is the main driver in these cases.

Notice what Ruth Bader Ginsberg said about this. She recognized this when she said: ``A court's decision to certify a class . . . places pressure on the defendant to settle even unmeritorious claims.'' That is pretty powerful from a Supreme Court Justice talking about these issues.

Judge Diane Wood of the Seventh Circuit Court of appeals, appointed by President Clinton back in the day, has explained that class certification ``is, in effect, the whole case.''

Then-Chief Judge of the Seventh Circuit Richard Posner explained that certification of a class action, even one lacking merit, forces defendants ``to stake their companies on the outcome of a single jury trial, or be forced by fear of the risk of bankruptcy to settle even if they have no legal liability.''

Mr. Speaker, listen to what these judges are saying. They are saying, number one, that the class certification is the most important thing because it depends on the outcomes and forces settlements. Notice what was said here by Supreme Court Justice Ginsberg, ``unmeritorious claims.'' Judge Diane Wood, Seventh Circuit, talked about it being ``the whole case.'' Judge Posner says that, in actuality, they are forced to settle ``even if they have no legal liability.''

In another Seventh Circuit Court decision, the court wrote: ``One possible solution to this problem is requiring judges to do some threshold level of review of the merits of a class action before allowing certification, that is, approval of a class . . . It is cases like the one before us that demonstrate precisely why the courts, and Congress, ought to be on the lookout for ways to correct class action abuses. Given the complexity of our legal system, it is impossible to develop perfect standards for identifying and quickly disposing of frivolous claims. Inevitably this court and other courts will be faced with the cases that waste the time and money of everybody. Beyond addressing the legal claims before us as we would in any ordinary case, we must frankly identify situations where we suspect the lawyers, rather than the claimants, are the only potential beneficiaries.''

Again, not coming in a vacuum, it is coming from the courts who see this on a regular basis, from Judge Ginsberg on down, saying: This is the whole deal. This is why we do these things.

Mr. Speaker, this is something that does need to be taken up. It is something that we are proud to bring to the floor. In doing so, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I think what we are hearing today--and I think what we are going through in the process--is issues of real change, issues of discussions that have been going on in our country for really now almost 8 years. It has been 7 years since the Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare, was passed.

We are seeing the changes that have taken place, Mr. Speaker, from your time here and my time here on really dealing with the American people and dealing with the substances of what their concerns and fears are. The things that I have come before this body and debated many times were what does the view look like from outside of this Chamber.

Inside this Chamber, we have raucous debates. We have discussions on things. And at the end of the day, I believe sometimes, Mr. Speaker, those sitting at home say: Does anybody listen to me? Does anybody hear my call?

Over the past few years, we have seen through election results and we have seen through times of change here in this body that the Affordable Care Act is nothing like affordable. In fact, as many have described it, it has been in a death spiral. We are beginning to work on that.

Now, I understand how that can make the other side, the ones who gave us the Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare, not want to see that changed. I can appreciate that.

Reality must set in at some point, and reality says that to defend something that is failing is asking for a status quo that hurts people. Now, I believe my friends across the aisle don't want to do that, but that is what they are doing, holding onto a legacy that is only a legacy for many of heartbreak and problems.

Did it help in some ways? Are we finding some? Did we address issues over the past few years and begin the discussion of preexisting conditions, keeping our children on until 26, and removing caps? Those were all discussed and could have been handled in many different ways besides the government takeover of health care.

Instead, we chose to use an ideological position to begin the process of moving forward, and moving forward in which government will put its fingers on the scale and government will begin to say what is right and what is wrong. What we found in the whole process was our individual mark is destroyed.

I have had some of my colleagues actually say: Let's just start over and go back to the way it was. That would be nice, except that land doesn't exist anymore.

Even if you wanted to--and I don't think we need to--we need to move forward with free-market solutions that put access to affordable health care for all Americans on the table, so that we can actually bend the cost curve so that we can actually work to help people. That is what we are working on. We are going to continue to work on making a smooth transition from the disaster that many of us have seen over the past few years. When we do that, change will come, and change is hard.

My folks back home are looking for change that helps, by Brittany Ivey, who joined me here for the joint session just a few weeks ago, who had employer-based health coverage with her family taken. She had to make choices about healthcare coverage and staying home. These choices make families' decisions harder because they would rather make the decision to stay with family, but are having to work because health care became unaffordable. It is these kind of choices that we are laying out for the American people to listen and to say: What do we need to do and how do we need to go forward?

So when we look ahead, we take issues of health care seriously. The gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter) is a friend. She states her position eloquently. It is always good to be on the floor with her. We disagree, and this is the place for this disagreement. This is a time in which we share; this is a time in which we come together. And what the Republican majority will do, Mr. Speaker, is keep its promises.

Now, I have had a moment of sharing what we are doing in health care, but also let's get back to why we are here, for the rule. The rule deals with abuses in the system; it deals with fairness.

Mr. Speaker, today we are discussing reforms to our litigation system that increase fairness, balance, and transparency. These principles are part of our larger goals as House Republicans to create a system that works better for the American people and restores accountability to the system.

We agree that there are legitimate lawsuits and legitimate class action suits. No one is arguing against that. In fact, I firmly believe that Americans should have access to a robust legal system that protects them.

We encounter a problem, however, when frivolous lawsuits are lobbed against small businesses and employers in attempts to profit without warrant and at the expense of jobs.

The bills provided for by the underlying rule help us address this challenge and to ensure that the litigation system functions as intended, rather than being manipulated to improperly target individuals or entities for profit.

The rule itself provides for robust debate on the legislation and amendments from both sides of the aisle.

I would encourage my colleagues to look favorably on these bills as a step toward reining in unnecessary and burdensome litigation and making the legal system work better to address true grievances and harms.

Mr. Speaker, that last statement probably sums up what we need to be about here. Let's look at the truth. Let's help people. Let's remember why we are here and, that is, those who sent us.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I thank my colleague and friend from Georgia for yielding time to me.

Mr. Speaker, with this package of bills, the majority is taking a sledgehammer to civil litigation. I know that my colleague and I are not going to agree with that because I listened intently to what he had to say. But it is closing courthouse doors to ordinary people who are injured in the workplace and makes it harder for working people wronged by the rich and powerful to seek justice.

First, H.R. 985 is really a solution in search of a problem. It uses the false notion of rampant fraud in the legal system to shield corporate wrongdoers and deny their victims relief.

Second, H.R. 906 has the potential to further victimize asbestos victims.

Third, H.R. 720 would roll back significant improvements to the Rules of Civil Procedure and repeat a failed experiment that led to a decade of problems in the courts. By requiring mandatory sanctions that tie judges' hands, we saw an avalanche of unnecessary litigation.

The majority is wasting time and taxpayer money to make changes that evidence and the experts tell us are not necessary and could actually cause more harm than good. It doesn't make sense.

But consider, Mr. Speaker, how the majority conducted itself on health care for a decade now. Almost immediately after President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, 13 Republican State attorneys general filed a Federal lawsuit opposing health reform. That was back in 2010. Since that time, the majority has voted over and over again-- more than 60 times--to undermine the ACA.

CBS News has highlighted that it costs the taxpayers an estimated $24 million a week to run the House of Representatives. Think how many millions of dollars of legislative time the majority wasted on these votes that never had any chance of becoming law under the previous President. They wasted taxpayers' dollars and they wasted precious time. The majority spoke again and again about repeal and replace, and all the while, they didn't have a thing in the world to replace the health care with.

Former Speaker John Boehner recently made that clear, and it wasn't until this week that the majority finally let Members of Congress and the American people see their latest effort--and it would be a catastrophe for families across the country. More and more groups and individuals are lining up against it.

People would be forced to pay more for worse coverage if they could afford any coverage at all. The bill would also defund Planned Parenthood, which more than 2.5 million people, men and women, rely on for lifesaving preventive care, like cancer screenings and STI testing, every single year.

It is truly astonishing that the majority is trying to rush through this bill without a Congressional Budget Office estimate about how much it would cost or what impact it would have on the insurance market.

Let me quote from a Washington Post story this morning written by the great Karen Tumulty:

While it is not uncommon for panels to consider legislation

without the Congressional Budget Office first weighing in,

veterans of the process say that doing so on bills as far-

reaching as the healthcare overhaul is rare and ill-advised.

We don't have any idea how many people would gain or lose coverage without the CBO estimate, but we do know that this bill would take us back to the days before the Affordable Care Act when American people were on their own to try and get health care without any real safeguards in place at all; when families were liable to go bankrupt from heavy healthcare costs in a year's time, and the ACA protects them from that by saying that once an insured person has spent $4,500 a year on health care, the insurance company will pay the rest, and for a family, $12,500 to insure them. That is something so rarely talked about that is in this bill that I think is of vast importance, and we would lose that.

Billionaires would get a tax break, but working families probably couldn't afford health care.

We are rushing through this healthcare bill without a proper understanding of its cost or its impacts. The majority completely skipped the hearing process and, therefore, hasn't heard from experts or doctors or people battling an illness--except, I guess, what is going on torturing people over in the Energy and Commerce Committee where they have been there since, what, over 24 hours now.

So we were encouraged yesterday when we learned at the Rules Committee that White House Secretary

Sean Spicer had said at a briefing yesterday:

Every Member of the House and the Senate will be able to

have their opportunity to have amendments offered through the

committee process and on the floor.

It looks like we are not going to have that opportunity. And I do not have enthusiasm for the notion that we will have an open rule since, under this Speaker we have not had any, and the Democrats long to be able to offer some amendments to this bill. I certainly hope that that might be the case.

Now, the only way that happens is through the open rule. As I said, we haven't seen one of those in Speaker Ryan's leadership. I hope the majority follows through with the White House's promise of an open rule because, more than anything on this, the American people deserve an open and transparent process as this bill moves forward.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule that would require a CBO cost estimate to be made publicly available for any legislation that amends or repeals the Affordable Care Act which may be considered in the Energy and Commerce or Ways and Means Committees or on the House floor.

The Committees on Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce are marking up repeal legislation today. Legislation this significant should not advance through the committee process, let alone the House, without first hearing from our nonpartisan budget experts at CBO on what the cost and overall impact would be.

Mr. Speaker, one of the most enduring symbols of fairness is Lady Justice, who is depicted holding the Scales of Justice that represent fairness in our courts. That central idea is embodied in the fact that justice in the United States of America is supposed to be delivered fairly, without any bias toward wealth or privilege.

It is no secret that sometimes we do struggle to live up to that ideal. We have seen evidence of that far too often recently. But, Mr. Speaker, this Chamber shouldn't be actively working to tilt those scales toward the rich and the powerful, but that is what this legislation would do. Considering these bills wastes their money and fritters away the time we should be spending addressing our crumbling infrastructure and the skyrocketing cost of education.

And, Mr. Speaker, today we got from the American Society of Civil Engineers the new grades on our infrastructure. This year we get a D minus, and we should certainly do better than that.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment into the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.