Judiciary Committee Passes Bill To Protect Public Safety
In Secret Court Settlements
WASHINGTON (Thursday, March 6, 2008) – The Senate Judiciary
Committee today approved legislation authored by Committee Member
Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) and sponsored by Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy
(D-Vt.) and Member Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) to prohibit courts from
shielding important health and safety information from the public as
part of legal proceedings against corporations. The bipartisan
“Sunshine in Litigation Act” was prompted by dozens of cases in
which hazards and threats to public health were not disclosed during
court lawsuits or out of court settlements and subsequently resulted
in additional fatalities, serious injuries and illnesses.
Kohl chairs the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and
Consumer Rights, and chaired a
hearing on the Sunshine in Litigation Act in December.
“Far too often, our courts permit vital information that is
discovered in litigation -- which bears directly on public health
and safety -- to be covered up,” Kohl said. “This legislation
simply says that while litigants may want total confidentiality when
resolving their disputes in court, information about public health
and safety dangers does not deserve court-endorsed protection. This
bill creates the appropriate balance between secrecy and openness in
cases involving public health and safety.”
“Allowing certain court documents to be kept secret in cases where
public health and safety is at stake can and does put lives in
jeopardy,” said Leahy. “I was delighted to join Sen. Kohl in
cosponsoring his legislation to make it more difficult for courts to
seal records in cases that reveal threats to public health and
safety. I hope the Senate will consider this legislation in the
best interest of the American consumer.”
These court-approved secrecy agreements even prevent government
officials or consumer groups from learning about and protecting the
public from defective and dangerous products. Under the bill,
judges must consider public health and safety before granting a
protective order sealing court records and approving secret
settlement agreements. They have the discretion to grant or deny
secrecy based on a balancing test that weighs the public’s interest
in a potential public health and safety hazard and legitimate
interests in secrecy.
The most famous case of court secrecy abuse involved
Bridgestone/Firestone tires. From 1992 to 2000, tread separations
of various Bridgestone and Firestone tires were causing accidents
across the country, many resulting in serious injuries and even
fatalities. The company quietly settled dozens of lawsuits, most of
which included secrecy agreements. It was not until 1999, when a
Houston public television station broke the story, that the company
acknowledged its wrongdoing and recalled 6.5 million tires. By then,
it was too late for the more than 250 people who had died and more
than 800 injured in accidents related to the defective tires.
Other examples of recent court-endorsed secrecy agreements have
included over-the-counter children’s medicine, defective baby cribs,
Zyprexa, and Cooper Tires. Earlier examples of court secrecy
agreements that resulted in injuries or fatalities include defective
heart valves, dangerous playground equipment, side-saddle gas tanks
prone to causing deadly car fires, complications from silicone
breast implants, “park to reverse” problems in pick-up trucks, and
dangerous birth control devices.
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