"Ultimately, this has produced outcomes that favor expediency and profit for lawyers over justice and fairness for consumers," said Rep. Porter. "The victims gain little or nothing through the settlement, yet suffer perpetuity. And all Americans bear the cost of these settlements through increased prices for goods and services. Today's vote will end the most serious abuses by allowing more interstate class actions to be heard in federal court, while keeping local cases in state courts."
Since the founding of this country, the federal courts have retained jurisdiction over cases between citizens of different states involving large amounts of money. However, because of an anomaly in the way the law has been interpreted, class action cases involving parties from many states and millions of dollars have been excluded from this rule. The result has been a proliferation of large class actions in "magnet" state courts that cannot be transferred to federal court. The Class Action Fairness Act closes this loophole by creating federal jurisdiction over large multi-state class action cases.
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