
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 8, 1995                   TAG: 9503080101
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

BILL TO CUT LAWSUITS APPROVED

Republicans on Tuesday muscled to House passage a business-backed measure designed to pressure combatants in lawsuits to settle their differences short of costly trials. Trial lawyers strongly opposed the bill.

The measure, approved 232-193 in a near-party-line vote, was the first of three bills expected to clear the House this week in an effort to cut down on what Republican members call frivolous lawsuits clogging the nation's courts.

The House then turned immediately to a measure that would make it tougher for corporations and stockbrokers to prevail in defending against securities-fraud lawsuits.

The third GOP-backed legal measure would make it easier for corporations to prevail in product-liability cases, and would pre-empt state law on the subject. It also would limit punitive damages awarded in the vast majority of state and federal civil lawsuits, not just product-liability suits, to $250,000 or three times the economic damages, whichever is greater.

Supporting the first measure were 216 Republicans and 16 Democrats. Voting against were 181 Democrats and 11 Republicans.

Among Virginia's delegation, all Republicans voted for the measure except Rep. Herbert Bateman, Newport News; and all Democrats voted against it except Rep. L.F. Payne, Nelson County.

In a bid to dramatize a need for changes in the legal system, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke, noted that the Girl Scouts of Washington must sell 87,000 boxes of cookies each year to pay for liability insurance. ``This is not a problem that deals with corporate America alone,'' said Goodlatte.

But Girl Scout officials said the statistic is unfounded and that lawsuits aren't a big problem for them. The Washington-area council has never been sued. The national organization takes no position on the bill.

Opponents of the measure said it would tilt the system too heavily in favor of corporations.

In a compromise from forcing the loser in a lawsuit to pay the legal costs of the winner is a provision that encourages the two sides to settle short of trial. It can require the winner in a suit to wind up paying a portion of the legal costs incurred by the loser in some instances.

``Loser pays'' is a concept firmly rooted in English law. White House spokesman Mike McCurry mocked the measure as something that ``comes from a system in which justices wear powdered wigs.''

by CNB