Proposition 64

Proposition 64
Limit on Private Enforcement of Unfair Business Competition Laws.

Should individual or class action "unfair business" lawsuits be allowed only if actual loss suffered? Only government officials may enforce these laws on public's behalf.

Virtual UU Meeting House discussion: come on in, and read what people had to say.

Official Summary and Arguments

Proposition 64 allows individual or class action "unfair business" lawsuits only if actual loss suffered; only government officials may enforce these laws on public's behalf. Fiscal Impact: Unknown state fiscal impact depending on whether the measure increases or decreases court workload and the extent to which diverted funds are replaced. Unknown potential costs to local governments, depending on the extent to which diverted funds are replaced.

A YES vote on this measure means:

Except for the Attorney General and local public prosecutors, no person could bring a lawsuit for unfair competition unless the person has suffered injury and lost money or property. Also, except for the Attorney General and local public prosecutors, a person pursuing such claims on behalf of others would have to meet the additional requirements of class action lawsuits.

A NO vote on this measure means:

A person could bring a lawsuit under the unfair competition law without having suffered injury or lost money or property. Also, a person could bring such a lawsuit without meeting the additional requirements of class action lawsuits.

Arguments FOR Proposition 64

Proposition 64 closes a loophole allowing lawyers to file frivolous shakedown lawsuits against small businesses. Proposition 64 stops lawyers from pocketing most of the settlements from these bogus lawsuits. Don't be mislead by the trial lawyers' smokescreen: 64 doesn't change any of California's consumer or environmental laws! Yes on 64.

FOR Proposition 64: Ray Durazo, Chairman, Latin Business Association; Martyn Hopper, State Director, National Federation of Independent Business; Maryanu Maloney, Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse; John Kehoe, Founding Director, Senior Action Network; Allan Zaremberg, President, California Chamber of Commerce; Christopher M. George, Chairman of the Board of Governors Small Business Action Committee

Arguments AGAINST Proposition 64

Newspaper headlines warn: "Consumers lose if initiative succeeds." The LA Times reports Proposition 64 "would weaken a state law that allows private groups and government prosecutors to sue businesses for polluting the environment and for engaging in misleading advertising and other unfair business practices...the current law would be drastically curtailed."

AGAINST Proposition 64: Elizabeth M. Imholz, Director, Consumers Union, West Coast Office; Susan Smartt, Executive Director, California League of Conservation Voters; Deborah Burger, R.N., President, California Nurses Association

For Proposition 64

Against Proposition 64

Nonpartisan Background and Analysis

UU Commentaries

No commentary was received prior to our deadline. Please add your opinion and voice to the discussion below.

Against Proposition 64

Commentary 1: "Our state's unfair business practices law is the strongest in the nation"

As a law student I had the opportunity to use California's strong Unfair Business Practices Law to help consumers and small businesses. In my law school free legal clinic, the law was used to make businesses that rip-off poor people with door to door schemes, used car dealers who misrepresent the cars they are selling as drivable, and home repair people who take advantage of elderly homeowners stop their practices and pay back their ill-gotten gains.

I, like the authors of Proposition 64, am appalled that there are unscrupulous lawyers who use this important law designed to protect consumers and honest businesses from unfair business practices to threaten small business owners and line their own pockets.

"If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature,
but by our institutions, great is our sin."
—Charles Darwin

The power of private attorneys to bring cases on behalf of the public was put into California law because our Attorney General and our local District Attorneys are swamped with work and the many harms, particularly small harms that affect large numbers of people and result in large gains for dishonest business people, are too numerous to be prosecuted by our public attorneys. The small harm to a single individual in many instances is too small to justify dedicating hours or years of ones' life, as a named plaintiff, to pursuing a claim against a business that may cheat hundred or thousands of Californians. Small harms to many people are not 'frivolous claims' as the authors of this initiative would have us believe. These harms cost California's honest businesses and consumers millions of dollars each year. The law marshals the private bar to act as "private attorneys-general" to help protect all of us from unfair business practices.

Our state's unfair business practices law is the strongest in the nation. Small businesses have legitimate concerns about misuse of the law by unscrupulous lawyers. Like the authors of Proposition 64, I want to see such attorneys stopped. Misuse of the California Unfair Practices Law by attorneys can result in the attorney losing his/her license to practice. Those Southern California attorneys who misused the law resigned before they could be disbarred. They won't be threatening small businesses again. The California Bar can and does disbar attorneys. The system works!

So who wants to reduce the protections for consumers by passing Proposition 64? Big business! There are unethical big businesses who want to reduce the ability of California consumers to be protected from their actions. Such businesses lose when legitimate cases are brought under California's Unfair Practices Law by private attorneys. When that happens, consumers win and so do California businesses that play by the rules.

There is already a way to stop bad lawyers from shaking down small businesses. Small businesses can complain to the state bar and seek an investigation leading to disbarment. Also these same "bad" lawyers may be prosecuted under the California Unfair Business Practice Law itself. The law was designed to protect honest business people and consumers. Keep our strong state Unfair Business Practices Law—vote not on Proposition 64!

Patricia A. Massey
First Unitarian Church of San Jose

"Ethics thought out is religious thought; ethics felt out is religious feeling, and ethics lived out is the religious life."
—William Channing Gannett

SUPPORTERS SAY Proposition 64 will stop frivolous lawsuits while continuing to allow lawsuits to be filed on behalf of the people of California. The say it will put settlement money into enforcement of consumer protection laws instead of into private pockets.

OPPONENTS SAY Proposition 64 will limit the rights of private citizens to bring consumer protection lawsuits. Corporations that profit from intentional pollution or from invasions of personal privacy should be subject to lawsuits regardless of personal injury or loss.

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