These new bills create by statute, a presumption of a public right of access to information exchanged in civil discovery - a radical departure from existing law not only in California, but throughout the country. The result will be increased litigation, more costly litigation, and the likely loss of protection for intellectual and other property rights.
They do this by:
- Misrepresenting the new state court rule on open trials and court records.
- Misrepresenting other states' lawsuit confidentiality provisions.
- Misrepresenting the role of lawsuit settlement agreements in providing information about incidents such as tire failures.
- Misrepresenting the fundamental nature of a civil lawsuit, i.e., a bare allegation of a defect does not prove that a defect exists.
- Misrepresenting the current law covering a judge's power over lawsuits.
- Misrepresenting the court workload increase that would result.
Consumers will suffer because...
- Increased litigation will drive up the cost of many products and discourage research and production of others (This happened recently, for example, with bio-materials, causing Congress to respond with litigation protections.)
- Broad disclosure of company information discourages employees from engaging in the open and frank internal critiques which are essential to improved, safer products.
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