EDITORIAL REINING IN THE SUITS.WITH the stroke of a pen, President George W. Bush restored some sanity to the nation's legal system last week. Under the Class-Action Fairness Act, certain class-action lawsuits that cross state lines will take place in federal court. The reform not only puts matters of interstate commerce interstate commerce n. commercial trade, business, movement of goods or money, or transportation from one state to another, regulated by the federal government according to powers spelled out in Article I of the Constitution. The federal government can also regulate commerce within a state when it may impact interstate movement of goods and services, and may strike down state actions which are barriers to such movement under Chief Justice John Marshall's where they rightly belong, but also eliminates ``court shopping,'' under which trial lawyers cherry-pick the jurisdiction where they're most likely to reap the biggest reward. Class-action suits have long been abused to enrich trial lawyers with million-dollar payments at the expense of plaintiffs, who get very little. Reforming the system is welcome and overdue. |
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