Tran tries to level the playing field for lawsuits

Assemblyman Van Tran wrote a bill introduced Tuesday that aims to make it easier for companies to defend themselves against class-action lawsuits.

Especially given the state of the economy, Tran said, California’s legal code needs to be more business-friendly.

“California is notorious in class-action law to be anti-defendant,” said John H. Sullivan, president of the Civil Justice Assn. of California, the lobbying group that sponsored the bill, AB 298.

The provisions Tran is seeking to change, however, are in place to protect consumers and other individuals from being steam-rolled by the legal teams of big corporations, according to the dean of Whittier Law School, Neil Cogan, who has taught classes on class-action law.

For a class-action suit to go forward, a judge must certify that the people who are claiming they were wronged by a company have similar claims. Without the certification, a class-action suit can’t be tried.

Under current law, the plaintiffs in a case can appeal a judge’s decision not to certify a group, but the company defending the claim cannot appeal a decision to the contrary.

Tran and Sullivan see this as an uneven playing field for business because the plaintiffs have a right that the defendants don’t. But Cogan says the disparity levels the playing field.

Class-action suits are usually brought by hundreds or even thousands of people who claim they have been cheated out of a small amount of money or have been treated inequitably in some other way by a big company, Cogan said. If a judge doesn’t certify them as a class, then it becomes impossibly expensive for them to pay the hefty cost of legal fees.

“Typically defendants in these cases — drug manufacturers or banks — can well fund a defense of a class action, whereas it doesn’t work the other way,” Cogan said.

Many other states already have the same type of law in place that Tran is proposing, Sullivan said. Not following suit could result in businesses leaving California and moving elsewhere to avoid the threat of protracted legal battles.

Even though the companies defending themselves may have more resources, “it should not be relevant legally who has what money on what side,” Sullivan said.

— Alan Blank