The Specter of Tort Reform

No not related to the Obamacare fiasco, rather a little gift Arlen (D) wants to hand out to the bar.

Arlen Specter became a Democrat this year, but there’s one party we’re confident the Pennsylvania Senator will never abandon—the trial bar. He’s recently introduced legislation to repeal two important Supreme Court business rulings in order to create a new lawsuit bonanza.

In Stoneridge v. Scientific Atlanta, five Justices ruled in 2008 that companies can’t be sued merely for doing business with another firm that commits fraud. This followed the 1994 precedent in Central Bank of Denver v. First Interstate Bank of Denver, in which the Justices limited liability claims against alleged “aiders and abettors.” Both decisions undermine “scheme liability” suits, which are the kind of elastic legal claim that gives U.S. civil justice a bad name.

Enter Mr. Specter and Rhode Island’s Jack Reed, who say the decisions deny fraud victims their day in court. Their bill would amend the 1934 Securities Exchange Act specifically to authorize a private right of action for aiding-and-abetting liability. The two Supreme Court rulings interpreted the law narrowly to apply only to primary offenders, who can still be sued by genuine—and even not-so-genuine—victims of fraud.

Nice that he thinks so much of those poor lawyers that he want to help them make even more money against the fair decision by the SCOTUS.