Update: House Bill a ‘Death Sentence’ for Plaintiffs’ Firms
With Donald Trump in the White House, pro-business groups see an opening for a series of bills moving through the House that would discourage class actions and generally make it harder to sue businesses, reports Bloomberg Businessweek.
One bill would restrict plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees to a percentage of the amount actually distributed to the class, writes Paul Barrett. “That could effectively kill off suits that seek a change in corporate behavior and pay class members little or nothing in damages.”
Professor John Coffee Jr. of Columbia Law School wrote on his Blue Sky Blog that a proposed restriction barring plaintiffs’ firms from repeatedly representing the same client in class actions “seems either a death sentence for the large plaintiffs’ firm or the end of large public pension funds serving as lead plaintiff.”