American Tort Reform Association : Another $54 Million Consumer Lawsuit in D.C.

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American Tort Reform Association

Since 1986, American Tort Reform Association is the only national organization exclusively dedicated to reforming the civil justice system. ATRA was co-founded in 1986 by the American Medical Association and the American Council of Engineering Companies. Since that time, ATRA has been working to bring greater fairness, predictability and efficiency to America's civil justice system. ATRA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization with affiliated coalitions in more than 40 states. ATRA's membership is diverse and includes nonprofits, small and large companies, as well as state and national trade, business, and professional associations.

About Sherman Joyce

SHERMAN JOYCE is President of the American Tort Reform Association (ATRA), a national coalition of more than 300 non-profit organizations, professional societies, trade associations and corporations working through in-state coalitions to bring fairness and efficiency to the civil justice system. As President of ATRA, Mr. Joyce is the Association's Chief Executive Officer and a member of its Board of Directors.

Upon graduation from Princeton University, Joyce served as a legislative assistant to U.S. Senator John C. Danforth (R - MO) until 1984. Following graduation from Catholic University Law School, he served as minority counsel to the Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space of the Senate's Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation from 1987 to 1989.

He then moved to the minority counsel position with the committee's Subcommittee on the Consumer where he led Republican efforts to establish uniform rules for product liability law. In addition, he advised Senators on issues pertaining to product safety, antitrust law, advertising, and consumer and telemarketing fraud.

Accepting leadership responsibilities with ATRA in 1994, Joyce has since appeared on numerous television and radio programs to discuss civil justice issues, and he has been quoted extensively in newspapers across the country. In 1995 the National Law Journal recognized him as one of its "40 under 40", a compilation of 40 influential lawyers in the nation under age 40.

Another $54 Million Consumer Lawsuit in D.C.

In light of another absurd $54 million consumer protection lawsuit filed in the District of Columbia, the American Tort Reform Association has again urged local policymakers to make reasonable reforms to the city’s well-intentioned but easily exploited Consumer Protection and Procedures Act. Full text of our recent letter to D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty, City Council Chairman Vincent Gray and two key Council committee chairpersons, Phil Mendelson and Mary Cheh, follows below:

February 14, 2008

RE: Another $54 Million Consumer Protection Lawsuit Highlights Need for Reforms

Dear Mayor Fenty, Chairman Gray and Chairpersons Mendelson and Cheh:

As you likely know by now, another absurd $54 million consumer protection lawsuit, Campbell v. Best Buy, has been filed in D.C. Superior Court. Among other things, the plaintiff has told reporters that, in pursuit of media attention, she capriciously chose to pursue the same amount of damages that former administrative law judge Roy Pearson Jr. vindictively sought from his neighborhood dry cleaners in the infamous “pantsuit” that became internationally embarrassing for the District last year.

At that time, my organization and others urged reasonable reforms to the District’s well-intentioned but loosely worded Consumer Protection and Procedures Act (CPPA) which would help protect the integrity of the law and our courts. Now that another opportunistic plaintiff is exploiting D.C.’s consumer protection law ― at considerable expense to taxpayers and consumers ― we again urge you to consider the following reforms:

· Provide that consumers can recover their actual losses as well as reasonable attorneys fees, not an arbitrary and excessive $1,500 per violation regardless of their injury, except in cases when it can be shown that a defendant’s actions were knowingly and willfully fraudulent or deceptive, and

· Permit only those consumers who experienced a loss because they actually relied on a fraudulent or deceptive advertisement or representation to bring a lawsuit, not those who vaguely claim harm to others or the general public.

Unlike other states, the District's CPPA is uniquely attractive to plaintiffs’ lawyers because it allows claims regardless of whether a consumer was injured or suffered a loss. (California had the only other such law, and the havoc it wreaked on small businesses in particular led voters to amend it by initiative in 2004.) The extraordinarily high amount of statutory damages provided for by D.C.’s consumer protection law also serves as an additional incentive for self-interested individuals to engage in lawsuit abuse, even as the public interest suffers.

If, as policymakers, you want to limit such outrageous manipulation of the city’s consumer protection law before late-night comics brand D.C. “Home of the $54 Million Lawsuits;” and if you want to make it easier for small and large District businesses to thrive, employ more residents and generate more tax revenue while providing consumers with lower, more competitive prices for goods and services, please work to enact these simple reforms.

Respectfully yours,

Sherman Joyce

CC: D.C. City Council Members Carol Schwartz, David Catania, Kwame Brown, Jim Graham, Jack Evans, Muriel Bowser, Harry Thomas Jr., Tommy wells, Yvette Alexander and Marion Barry

* * *

The more recent $54 million lawsuit was filed last November by a District resident whose laptop computer was allegedly lost or stolen when she left it for repairs at a Best Buy location in D.C.

Published Monday, February 25, 2008 11:36 AM by Sherman Joyce

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