Wage Law

As expected, President Bush signed the Class Action "Fairness" Act of 2005 this morning. The law is intended to curb frivolous class actions by taking the very good cases, worth $5 million or more, and making them harder to pursue. The frivolous cases, worth less than $5 million, will still remain in state court, where they will continue to occasionally frustrate defendants and judges, enriching a very small number of plaintiff's lawyers and a somewhat larger count of defense lawyers, and benefitting few, if any, consumers. If the bill has an unintended result of letting big corporate donors off the hook for mass-inflicted harms on low wage workers, consumers and other individuals, that is probably a pure coincidence.

Next up for the Bush administration: fighting frivolous medical malpractice cases by capping the amount of damages that plaintiffs can recover in good cases. The logic, though flawed, is at least consistent.