Do the nation’s trial lawyers deserve a taxpayer bailout? That’s what they’re after: a special-interest tax break of $1.6 billion. In fact, after Congress refused to consider giving them that break, they are now trying to get it from the Treasury Department. In order to bestow that gift, though, the Treasury Department would have to reverse the view it took back in the Clinton Administration (which, incidentally, was not known for its hostility to the trial lawyers) and change its 1997 ruling without any intervening change in the underlying facts …
When a disgruntled employee files a lawsuit that goes to court his employer must pay tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. Even if the courts reject the allegation as frivolous employers must still pay the lawyers. That allows unscrupulous employees to use threat of going to court to win large settlements from their bosses for baseless claims. Guilty or not guilty, the employer loses money that could have been used to expand operations and hire more workers. Consequently many employers are turning to alternative dispute resolution …
One failure of news coverage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act—which would open the courts to claims of pay discrimination dating back years or decades—is that it has completely ignored a thoughtful alternative proposed by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX). Hutchison’s Title VII Fairness Act (just reintroduced as S. 166), rather than allowing any claim—no matter how old, no matter if the plaintiff delayed filing just to gain an upper hand—would start the limitations period running only when an employee reasonably suspects, or should reasonably suspect, that he or …
