C. Cox

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. As I indicated, I would like to reserve time at the end for such purpose. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Bryant].

Mr. COX of California. May I inquire of the Chair how much time remains on each side?

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Shays].

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Ramstad].

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. It is very interesting to note that the fair share rule that we are proposing in this amendment is apparently so unobjectionable that the minority chooses not even to debate it, but rather to debate the red herring, first, that the Conyers amendment that we earlier passed might be stricken by this amendment. They have now conceded that the Conyers amendment is protected, is part of this bill. We have just passed it. It is not stricken. But the argument is raised that the service of process provisions in another part of the bill, which are required in order to make the Conyers amendment work, would be stricken. That is neither here nor there because the Hague Service Convention already provides procedures consistent with our international agreements that will permit the Conyers amendment to work perfectly fine. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Christensen].

Mr. COX of California. Our amendment dealt with section 109 and struck it. The gentleman from Michigan added a new section 110. Our amendment has no effect on it. So the gentleman has carried the day.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Pete Geren. (Mr. PETE GEREN of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman makes a very fair point. In fact, the effect of gentleman's just having won on his amendment is that the provisions of this amendment that would otherwise have dealt with service of process will have no effect. The gentleman has carried the day, and the gentleman's amendment will in fact be successfully included in this bill.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Chairman, the tenor of the debate on this entire bill and all of the amendments to this bill is pretty clear: We have too many lawsuits in America. We have become too litigious. It costs too much money, and simple justice is not being served. The amendment that I am proposing, along with my colleague, Mr. Pete Geren from Texas, advances a simple rule that will go a long way to making Our simple rule is called the fair-share rule. Under this provision, a person will be made to pay for the damages that he, she, or it caused, but no person will be made to pay for damages that someone else caused. Our rule will hold wrongdoers responsible for their actions, and our rule will permit people who are not responsible for that damage to understand that their conduct will have been rewarded faithfully by the law. The so-called joint and several liability doctrine is really the fair-share rule stood on its head. If you are adjudged 1 percent liable, you can be required to pay under the current system 100 percent of the damages caused by someone else if it turns out that you are the only one in the picture that has any money. It is known to plaintiffs' trial lawyers as the deep-pockets opportunity. Find somebody, not necessarily a rich person, perhaps just a small business person or an individual who has an insurance policy, who you think can therefore be made to pay, or just from whom a settlement can be extorted, and bring them into the lawsuit. Take the case of a drunk driver going down the street, goes off the sidewalk onto the front lawn and kills someone. If that person is sued and the jury were to find, and this is approximately the facts in a real case in California, the jury finds that the drunk driver is 95 percent liable for the damage that the drunk driver caused, but the city is 5 percent liable because there was a pothole on the way, and the drunk driver does not have any money, then the taxpayers are stuck for all of the damage caused by the drunk. That is our current system. Under the fair share rule, someone adjudged 5 percent liable will pay 5 percent of the damage. That is the fair share rule. I urge support for this amendment.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume to say that earlier in the debate, one of the Members on the other side put a question to one of our Members but then did not yield him sufficient time to respond to that question. The question that was put was what ought to be the recompense for someone who has lost a foot due to the negligence of a doctor or a hospital, and the answer to that question is quite clear. Replacing someone's lost foot is very expensive in today's world. It involves a great deal of technology, a great deal of doctors and professional care, probably lifelong rehabilitation and hospitalization, and in a fair system, 100 percent of those costs without limit would be paid by the people who were responsible, and that is exactly what will obtain when we pass this amendment. Nothing in this amendment will change that. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to close the debate to the distinguished gentleman from Texas [Mr. Stenholm].

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Michigan suggests that it is outrageous to propose health care reform on this floor because health care reform has not had hearings in this Congress. I think that is something, after 2 years of hearings on health care, the American people would find outrageous. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Ganske].

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I am sure that the gentleman from Oklahoma did not mean to mischaracterize in his statement. He said that there are only two types of damages, economic and noneconomic. He inadvertently left out punitive damages which has been the subject of much debate here. Under our legislation, punitive damages are allowed, in addition, up to three times all of the actual damage. I should also point out that there is another more important reason that we need to do health care lawsuit reform tonight. It is that the poor and the disadvantaged who use our public hospitals, our free clinics and our community clinics are the worst injured by the high liability costs today. Qualified doctors increasingly are refusing to do high-risk procedures. And where do these high-risk procedures occur but in our public hospitals. The front page of the New York Times last Sunday is a great example. The bottom line for babies weighing over 5\1/2\ pounds, the cutoff they use as a general gauge of good health for babies, the death rate the first 4 weeks after birth in New York City's public hospitals is 80 percent higher than for babies born at private hospitals. New York's unlimited tort liability system has not stopped malpractice cases. They hired as an obstetrician a man who had failed for 14 years his national exams. Just a few months after he was hired by the city hospitals of New York, he became another one of their malpractice cases. New York, unlike California, does not have this kind of health care reform. They have thousands of lawsuits. Over the past two decades those lawsuits have not stopped malpractice. They have made it worse. A 1992 report studied lawsuits of 64 children in those New York hospitals who have been left brain damaged or permanently crippled because of negligence in the delivery room. These 64 lawsuits alone cost city hospitals $78 million and another 793 lawsuits were still pending. What is seen is that more and more lawsuits lead to ever higher liability premiums and this leads to even fewer qualified doctors willing to handle the kinds of higher-risk cases that typify low-income health care. That in turn leads to less and less access to quality care for the poor. The patients suffer. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Thomas]. (Mr. THOMAS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. I would just respond to the gentleman by saying, ``Of course this took place yesterday in the Rules Committee, and there was only one Member of Congress yesterday who had his legislation on the floor of the House, and it was this Member.''

Mr. COX of California. And after last week, as a result of conversations with Members on the Democratic side, it was suggested to me that I narrow the scope of my amendment and that I not propose an amendment to Federal law that would cover tort litigation in all the 50 States.

Mr. COX of California. Yes, not this week, but last week under the deadline that was set by the Committee on Rules. That was preprinted in the Record last week.

Mr. COX of California. As life occurred, I ran into the chairman of the Committee on Rules when I was here on the floor yesterday debating the Securities Litigation Act 15 minutes after the Committee on Rules had concluded their business, and so I just missed the bus. If I had not been on the floor all day yesterday doing the Securities Litigation Reform Act, I would have been up in the Committee on Rules, but it is literally a matter of minutes here that I was unable to learn that the Committee on Rules had already finished business.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to explain the need for amendment to the rule. Obviously this amendment will change an amendment offered by one Democrat at the request of that Democratic Member and an amendment offered by one Republican at the request of that Republican. In my case I have asked to narrow the scope of my amendment so that I can accommodate requests from Members on the other side of the aisle. The gentleman who just spoke, I take it, is an opponent of tort reform in the Congress for a variety of reasons. He would not, presumably, have voted for an amendment that will cover all torts in all courts in terms of noneconomic damages. Likewise, Mr. Speaker, I imagine he would not vote for an amendment that covers medical malpractice which is a subset. But several Members on that side of the aisle have indicated that they very much share the desire for reducing health care costs by getting at the problem of health care lawsuits, which is a subset of the amendment that I originally offered. So, Mr. Speaker, for that purpose, to focus the amendment more narrowly on a subject that is of broader concern in our Congress, I have asked to amend the rule to permit me to offer a more narrow amendment, and I appreciate the gentleman from the Committee on Rules offering me the opportunity to explain the purpose of my amendment.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. COX of California. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. COX of California. I thank the gentleman for that elucidating point. What the Manton amendment does is merely import the requirements of rule XI of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure into our bill and takes the post-December 1993 version of it, except it makes the imposition of fees mandatory as they were in the pre-December 1993 rule XI. I went down and spoke at the American Bar Association winter meeting of their litigations sections, several hundred lawyers, and we talked in some detail about this legislation. We also talked about other pending legislation, legal reform, and when it came to rule XI, which is not part of our bill, the lawyers who were there to argue for and against every single one of these issues were unable to do so. The fellow who got up to argue the pro cases for rule XI, and he was just assigned the job, said I know I am a layer; I can take both sides of every issue, usually, but in this case rule XI, there is not any argument in favor of it. It does not work. And that is what we know about rule XI. It has been tested and it does not work. It has been field tested, it has not accomplished its purpose. Unlike the bill as it is presently written, the Manton amendment would permit the reduction of awards to the extent that the prevailing party unreasonably delays, but the Manton amendment requires imposition of fees on the attorney unless the court determines that the losing party was principally responsible for violation. In contrast, the bill as written leaves the issue of who to impose the sanction on in the discretion of the court. One of the reasons that all of those folks at the ABA meeting did not like rule XI was this very element of what the gentleman from New York [Mr. Manton] would be introducing into the bill.