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Stop the rhetoric regarding lawsuits with PROP 37

The idea that Prop 37 will spawn lawsuits like Prop 65 did is incorrect ( though the positives of Prop 65 have outweighed some of the mistakes in the language of the legislation).  Let’s take a look at this ‘scare tactic’ that the no group is using to mislead you.  Below is a comment in response to an LA Weekly article that was substandard in its research and facts – This comment is from a consumer protection attorney in the specifics of 37’s language.

‘The remedies which the statute allow are injunctions — to stop the

false labeling — and attorney fees and costs of suit for protecting the

public. The idea that attorneys will be making millions by bogus

lawsuits is another of Ms. Stuart’s outright misrepresentation. The

consumer attorney is paid if any only if he/she is correct that there

has in fact been mislabeling.  If an attorney brings a bogus lawsuit,

then the Supreme Court has already said what the small business should

do to protect itself.  I know because I was the defense attorney who

prevailed in this case to prevent bogus toxic tort lawsuits.

 In Bockrath v Aldrich Chemical, Justice Mosk said that the attorney

may be disciplined by the State Bar and the defendant can use CCP 127.8

to shift the costs to the attorney who brings the bogus lawsuit. CCP

128.7 is quite effective for two reasons:  (1) Dishonest attorneys know

if their lawsuit is BS and thus they know that they will lose if

challenged, and (2) Dishonest attorneys are greedy and do not want to

pay the litigation costs and attorney fees for either themselves or the

defendant business which they wrongfully sued.  If the lawsuit is bogus,

it is easy to find an attorney to defend on a contingency basis —

which means the business does not have to pay up-front or pays his

lawyer only a small percentage up-front. 

 Manufacturers of carcinogens and other mega corporations out to rip

off the consumer have used this false specter of a flood of shake-down

lawsuit to stop most of California consumer protection statutes.  That

is why consumers who tried to stop the massive frauds in the home

mortgage market in 2005 and 2006 were unable to do anything. 

Irresponsible journalists like Ms. Stuart had convinced people to

decimate California’s Unfair Business Practices Law so Countrywide and

other corrupt mortgage lenders could continue to flood the international

mortgage market with defective securitized mortgages culminating in the

Crash of 2008. There are real world disasters when the public is

disarmed in the face of predatory businesses like the Koch Bros, Goldman

Sachs and Monsanto.’

See the whole story and comments here – http://www.laweekly.com/2012-10-25/news/gmo-proposition-37-backfires-little-guys/