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| NEC › Issues › Legal Reform › Class Action Reform | ||
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Class Action ReformThe New England Council, a leading advocate for class action reform legislation, was proud to see the enactment of the Class Action Fairness Act into law in early 2005. The Act had been a major priority of the Council for a number of years. This bipartisan legislation will help ensure that our legal system works more efficiently and is fairer for both plaintiffs and defendants than current law. The Class Action Fairness Act will help to reduce the instances of forum-shopping, and will help reduce the backlog of cases in overburdened state courts, while also containing provisions to keep class actions in state court if a case primarily involves matters of local concern. This legislation contains numerous
consumer protection provisions to help insure that those whom the class action
system was set up to protect, the plaintiffs, actually do benefit when a
court rules in their favor. One provision, in particular, would prohibit settlements
where the awards are so low that plaintiffs, after paying for legal fees,
actually lose money. Advocacy:
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