This article by Kimberly Kindy discusses the basics of two bills that recently passed the House of Representatives concerning the state-law tort system and a class-action bill that would go beyond the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 and move more class actions from state court to federal court. Both bills operate by imposing federal law and procedure — federal power, that is — on things traditionally done at the state level. The article also describes two other bills soon to be acted on by the House that would further impair the state-law civil justice system, both as to class actions and as to tort law more generally.
