F. Sensenbrenner

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cantor).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, the answer is yes. This bill is in the form that was reported from committee and it is also in the form that it was introduced by the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in voting for H.R. 3369, the Nonprofit Athletic Organization Protection Act of 2003. I would like to thank the bill's sponsor, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) for bringing attention to this issue and offering this legislation. Volunteer athletic organizations play an important role in the lives of children and communities throughout the country. Rulemaking bodies that set standards and uniform rules for sports play a vital role in facilitating a broad range of athletic competition. Nonprofit rulemaking bodies, such as Little League baseball or Pop Warner football, rely on the expertise of volunteers to establish rules for athletic competition and training that promote sportsmanship, preserve sports traditions, ensure fair and competitive play, and minimize risk to participants. As we know, almost all athletic competition carries risks to those who participate, and accidents do occur when young men and women are flying about on fields and courts and rinks. But rulemaking is a predictive endeavor, and rulemakers do not have the advantage of 20-20 hindsight when they make rules for competition. Unfortunately, no rule book can prevent injuries from occurring in the games that we play and love. What we also know after multiple lawsuits is that when those accidents occur sometimes the very nonprofit athletic organizations that seek to minimize risk to athletes have become the targets of costly, protracted, and often frivolous litigation based on harm that occurs in the course of a sporting event. Over the last several years nonprofit athletic organizations have been subject to mounting legal assault. Egregious examples are all too common. One Little League organization chose to avoid the threat of massive damages by settling a claim by a parent who was hit by a ball her own child failed to catch. In another example, lawyers for a youth who suffered an injury in a volunteer sponsored and supervised Boy Scout game of touch football filed a multimillion dollar lawsuit against the adult supervisors and the Boy Scouts of America. The explosion in the number of lawsuits against volunteer athletic organizations has had a corresponding impact on the price of insurance premiums these organizations are required to carry. According to the National High School Federation, for example, liability insurance rates for high school athletic organizations have spiked 300 percent over the last 3 years. In the short term, these increases divert resources from safety programs and equipment that reduce the risk of these injuries to athletes. If this trend continues to escalate, rulemaking authorities may be driven out of existence. H.R. 3369, the Nonprofit Athletic Organization Protection Act, would stem the growing tide of lawsuits against the range of nonprofit youth and high school athletic rulemaking bodies for rules that govern competition on the field. The legislation merely protects nonprofit athletic organizations from legal assault if harm was not caused by that organization's misconduct. Critically, this legislation would effect only a limited category of claims against the nonprofit rulemaking organizations, and all claims for willful misconduct, gross negligence or reckless misconduct would still be actionable. Nothing in this legislation provides liability relief for a school or a school district holding a competition or for coaches or officials supervising or conducting a game. The legislation also provides deference to States by preserving any State law that affords additional protection from liability relating to the rulemaking activities of the nonprofit athletic organization. The bill is a narrowly tailored, common sense remedy to a very serious and growing threat to volunteer athletic organizations. If we fail to act, some of these valuable organizations will close up shop. If we fail to act, youth sports and those who play them will ultimately suffer. I urge my colleagues to support the legislation. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3369 ) to provide immunity for nonprofit athletic organizations in lawsuits arising from claims of ordinary negligence relating to the passage or adoption of rules for athletic competitions and practices.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 3369.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1787) to remove civil liability barriers that discourage the donation of fire equipment to volunteer fire companies, as amended.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Speaker, we have debated this issue extensively and the venue for these types of personal injury cases are, one, the district where the plaintiff resides; two, the district where the injury occurred; or three, where the principal place of business of the defendant is located. Any one of these three criteria would trigger the venue. Now, it is elemental under the corporation law of all 50 States that if a corporation that is incorporated elsewhere and that includes in any one of the other 49 States or in a foreign country, wants to do business in a State, it has to get a certificate of authority and appoint an agent for the service of process. And that is what is done with practically every multinational corporation or interstate corporation that does bills in the United States. If they do not do that, then they do not have limited liability protection of the corporation law that applies. So the entire argument that is made by the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner) is a complete red herring. Now, the two gentlemen have quoted extensively from a Congressional Research Service memorandum that was dated today. And it begins, ``This rushed memorandum discusses this issue.'' Well, the CRS is wrong upon occasion. And in yesterday's extension of remarks in the Congressional Record, I inserted into the Record correspondence that indicated that a similar rushed memorandum of the Congressional Research Service on the Marriage Protection Act was erroneous in nature. Wrong once, maybe wrong again. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 4571.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time. Mr. Speaker, the John Kerry for President campaign has endorsed national legislation in which ``lawyers who file frivolous cases would face tough, mandatory sanctions, including a `three strikes and you're out' provision that forbids lawyers who file three frivolous cases from bringing another suit for the next 10 years.'' Unfortunately, the Democratic substitute did not listen to what the Kerry campaign said and does not forbid lawyers who file three or more frivolous lawsuits from bringing future lawsuits. The substitute only provides that on three strikes the offending attorney will be referred to a bar association, and no action need be taken by the bar to discipline the lawyer. The base bill, H.R. 4571, on the other hand, currently provides that an attorney who files frivolous lawsuits will be suspended for at least a year and perhaps much longer if the court deems it appropriate. I would ask all Members to reject the Democratic substitute. This quote that I have given from the Kerry for President campaign and those that the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Keller) has quoted of Senator Edwards in Newsweek magazine of last December, the Republican bill has got the type of bipartisan support that is needed to deal with this problem. I would urge a ``no'' vote on the substitute and passage of the base bill.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, the real outsourcing motion is the one which has been made by the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro). If this motion is adopted and this bill is enacted into law, it will cost American jobs. Anytime the cost of doing business in the United States goes up, the number of Americans with jobs will go down. This motion to recommit would increase the cost of doing business in this country and in the process lose American jobs. I do not want to hear anybody who has argued in favor of this motion ever to come back and complain about the outsourcing of American jobs to foreign countries if this motion passes because this is the type of thing that will absolutely do that. The motion to recommit defines the covered entities as those that have substantial business activities in this country, and hurting substantial business in American substantially hurts American workers. Stand up for American workers; vote down this motion to recommit. Stop the outsourcing of jobs by last-minute motions made on the floor with red herring arguments. Vote ``no'' on the motion to recommit. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close if the gentleman from Texas will yield back.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Hart).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 766, I call up the bill (H.R. 4571) to amend Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to improve attorney accountability, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, recently President Bush said, ``We must protect small business owners and workers from the explosion of frivolous lawsuits that threaten jobs across America.'' Even Senator Kerry claims to support national legislation in which ``lawyers who file frivolous cases would face tough, mandatory sanctions, including a `three strikes and you're out' provision that forbids lawyers who file three frivolous cases from bringing another suit for the next 10 years.'' Well, help is on the way. H.R. 4571, the Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act, would restore mandatory sanctions and monetary penalties under Federal rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for filing frivolous lawsuits and abusing the litigation process. It would also extend these same protections to cover State cases that a State judge determines to have interstate effects, and it would prevent forum shopping by requiring personal injury cases to be brought only where the plaintiff lives or was allegedly injured, or where the defendant's principal place of business is located. H.R. 4571 will also apply a ``three strikes and you're out'' rule to attorneys who commit multiple rule 11 violations in Federal district court and impose mandatory civil sanctions for willful and intentional document destruction intended to obstruct the pending court proceeding. The bill would apply to lawsuits brought by individuals as well as businesses, and it expressly precludes the application of the bill to civil rights cases if applying the bill to such cases would bar or impede the assertion or development of new claims or remedies under Federal, State, or local civil rights law. Today, frivolous lawsuits are legalized extortion. Without the threat of certain punishment for filing frivolous lawsuits, innocent people and small businesses will continue to face the harsh economic reality that simply paying off frivolous claims through monetary settlements is always cheaper than litigating the case until no fault is found. No part of American society rests easy in a legal culture of fear. Churches are discouraging counseling by ministers. Children have learned to threaten teachers with lawsuits. Youth sports are shutting down in the face of lawsuits for injury or even hurt feelings. Monkey bars and other once-common equipment are now endangered species at playgrounds. As a result, children stay at home and get fat, and their parents sue the restaurants that serve them. The Girl Scouts in metro Detroit alone have to sell 36,000 boxes of cookies each year just to pay for liability insurance, 36,000 boxes of cookies. Good Samaritans are told to hit the road. When one man routinely cleared a trail after snowstorms, the county had to ask him to stop. The supervisor of district operations wrote, ``If a person falls, you are more liable than if you had never plowed at all. Crazy world. Unfortunately, the times we are in allow for a much more litigious environment than common sense would dictate.'' Because existing rules against frivolous lawsuits are ineffective, the right to sue has not only been exploited by lawyers; it has been turned into one of the most destructive business models in the American economy. Today, personal injury lawyers can gamble on taking cases on a contingency-fee basis because they only need to win one in 10 to score the big judgment that would make up for the losses in other cases. We all live with the consequences, including higher taxes and insurance rates; chaos in our schools; doctors going out of business, limiting Americans' access to health care. Small businesses and workers may suffer the most. The Nation's oldest ladder manufacturer, the family-owned John S. Tilley Ladders Company near Albany, New York, recently filed for bankruptcy protection and sold off most of its assets due to litigation costs. Founded in 1855, the Tilley firm could not handle the cost of liability insurance, which had risen from 6 percent of sales a decade ago to 29 percent, even though the company had never lost an actual court judgment. Sadly, the Federal rule designed to deter frivolous lawsuits was gutted over 10 years ago; and today, we live with the results. Shockingly, rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure does not require sanctions or even allow monetary penalties against parties who bring frivolous lawsuits. Without certain punishment for those who bring frivolous lawsuits, and the threat of monetary penalties to compensate the victims of frivolous lawsuits, there is little incentive for lawsuit victims to spend time and money seeking sanctions for lawsuit abuse. Rule 11 also does not allow sanctions for the abuses of the discovery process. Rule 11 as currently written even allows lawyers to avoid sanctions entirely from making frivolous claims by withdrawing them within 3 weeks. Such a rule actually encourages frivolous lawsuits because personal injury attorneys can file harassing pleadings, secure in the knowledge that they have nothing to lose. If someone objects, they can simply retreat without penalty. H.R. 4571 closes all of these loopholes. Forum shopping further encourages frivolous litigation. Lax rules regarding where a lawsuit can be brought have turned certain parts of the country into lawsuit factories, the only factories that lose jobs rather than creating them. One of the Nation's wealthiest personal injury attorneys described what he calls ``magic jurisdictions'' as follows: ``What I call the `magic jurisdiction' is where the judiciary is elected with verdict money. The trial lawyers have established relationships with the judges that are elected. It's almost impossible to get a fair trial if you're a defendant in some of these places. Any lawyer fresh out of law school can walk in there and win the case, so it doesn't matter what the evidence or law is.'' H.R. 4571 would prevent the unfair practice of forum shopping that currently allows personal injury lawyers to sue wherever the most favorable court is. Congress cannot sit back and allow the personal injury lawyers to bankrupt the very concept of personal responsibility that has made America great. I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan legislation that will protect both America's values and its vital small businesses. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Speaker, the Judicial Conference has amnesia and they did not look back into the history of what happened between 1983 and 1993 when the rules that this bill proposes were in place. In 1991, the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Civil Rule did a survey and reviewed Rule 11. At that time 751 Federal judges found that an overwhelming majority of them, 95 percent, believed Rule 11 did not impede development of the law; 72 percent believed that the benefits of the rule outweighed any additional requirement of judicial time; 81 percent believed that the 1983 version of Rule 11 had a positive effect on litigation in the Federal courts; and 80 percent believed that the rule should be retained in its then-current form. That is what the judges who were on the bench at the time this rule was in effect said. The Judicial Conference ought to spend their time looking back at their own records and their own surveys rather than sending these types of letters advising us that what we are doing here is no good. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Keller).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, on that, I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.