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Business groups have recently provided some data about just two counties from one state, justifying their claims that there is a “hellhole” problem for class actions.
According to the Public Citizen consumer group, business lobby’s claims about “judicial hellholes,” areas of the country where courts are “unfair” to defendants for class action suits are fraudulent with no evidence to support their contentions.
There are 3,139 other county court systems in the country, and the business lobby’s contention that the class action system has gone astray, creating problems for businesses is only backed by some recent data bout two counties in one state, which is considering proposals pushed by major corporations to amend the state’s class action rules anyway.
A bill was introduced in the U.S. Senate this week that would prevent consumers from pursuing most class actions in state court and force them to federal courts. The lobby’s claims about the bill is that it will simply shift state class actions to federal court, however, it will end up closing out federal and state courthouses to consumers.
Consumers will be unable to seek redress for wrongdoing and fraud and it would let companies off the hook. The American Tort Reform Association (ATRA) in 2004 identified just nine “judicial hellholes,” which is based on survey results from its membership comprising of small and large companies, trade, business and professional associations and nonprofit organizations. ATRA identified four others as “dishonorable mentions.”
ATRA provided data substantiating its claims using just two Illinois locations of the 13 areas identified by the group, and in the most often discussed “hellhole” in Madison County, IL, the number of class action filings decreased by more than 30 percent between 2003 and 2004. The Illinois Supreme Court is also considering proposals pushed by major corporations to amend the state’s class action rules.
There is virtually no other empirical evidence of a problem in places besides Madison County in a comprehensive review of the Web sites of groups promoting federal class action legislation, reports they issued in recent years, and their congressional testimony and law journal articles, according to Public Citizen.
Congress will debate substantial changes to the class action system soon, but “when you analyze the claims about ‘judicial hellholes,’ the facts just don’t support the contentions,” according to Frank Clemente, director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division. Clemente adds, “If one or two court systems are a problem, it doesn’t mean the whole system should be upended, as this federal legislation would do.”