Chalk up a win for California businesses pushing for tort reform.
Assembly Majority Leader Dario Frommer, D-Glendale, earlier this month inactivated a bill that could renew lawsuits targeting businesses because he feared it wouldn’t win enough votes. Business groups cheered the move on Assembly Bill 528, though many expect the bill to resurface.
AB 528 opponents contend the bill partly would roll back Proposition 64 by allowing unharmed plaintiffs to sue companies for alleged environmental violations. Proposition 64, which voters passed last November, blocks unharmed plaintiffs from suing for alleged business code violations under Business and Professions Code 17200.
Proposition 64 was a reaction to aggressive law firms that critics say shook down small businesses under the 17200 code by threatening or filing scores of lawsuits.
“(AB 528) is an attempt to reopen shakedown lawsuits, to reverse part of Proposition 64,” said Sen. John Campbell, R-Irvine, who was one of the most vocal opponents of 17200-based lawsuits.
AB 528 made it through the Assembly Judicial and Appropriations committees and was ready for an Assembly vote. But Frommer decided he didn’t have enough support to guarantee the bill would pass.
Rather than risk the bill getting killed outright, Frommer chose to put it in on inactive status. Frommer, who plans to run for the Democratic nomination for state treasurer, may try to reintroduce the bill after Jan. 1.
Although Democrats hold a solid 48-32 majority in the Assembly, observers said the bill would have struggled to get the needed 41 votes to pass. One Democrat Assembly member was ill and couldn’t vote, leaving only 47 available Democrats. And with all 32 Republicans likely to vote against the bill, Frommer likely decided the risk was too great.
“If seven of the current 47 Democrats that are in attendance were wobbly, he wouldn’t have gotten the bill off,” said Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Orange.
Another big roadblock for the legislation: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who most likely would veto the bill.
Environmentalists were among those disappointed that a vote wasn’t held. Bill Magavern, a senior legislative representative with the Sierra Club of California, said he is hopeful that state legislators will reconsider the bill.
“There’s a solid core of Assembly members that are willing to advance public health and environmental protections, but we’re not at 41, which is what we need,” Magavern said. “It’s still only the first year of the current two-year session. That allows us to spend some time making a case for the bill and then bring it up for a vote next year.”
Dozens of major oil companies that do work in California came out against the bill in recent weeks. The Sacramento-based Civil Justice Association of California, a tort reform lobbyist group that coordinated the Proposition 64 campaign, had been running anti-AB 528 newspaper and radio ads.
“The battle isn’t over because the session isn’t over,” said Jeffrey Sievers, vice president of legislation for the Association.
