{"id":3144,"date":"2008-03-19T08:50:57","date_gmt":"2008-03-19T08:50:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/sunshine_in_litigation_act_gets_boost_in_senate\/"},"modified":"2020-07-07T11:09:41","modified_gmt":"2020-07-07T11:09:41","slug":"sunshine_in_litigation_act_gets_boost_in_senate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/sunshine_in_litigation_act_gets_boost_in_senate\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunshine in Litigation Act Gets Boost in Senate &#8211; National Consumers League"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- content_before_flip_start -->Three cheers for the <a href=\"https:\/\/judiciary.senate.gov\/\">Senate Judiciary Committee<\/a>, which approved what the New York Times called in a March 12 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2008\/03\/12\/opinion\/12wed3.html?scp=1&amp;sq=need+to+know&amp;st=nyt\">editorial<\/a> \u201ca modest but potentially life-saving bill\u201d known as the Sunshine in Litigation Act, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.govtrack.us\/congress\/bill.xpd?bill=s109-1348\">piece of legislation<\/a> that would require judges in federal courts to take into account public interest before granting a request for secrecy. In a letter NCL sent, along with Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, Government Accountability Project, and U.S. PIRG, to the Honorable Senator <a href=\"https:\/\/kohl.senate.gov\/\">Herb Kohl<\/a>, Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, we argued our support for the act and encouraged senators to see to it that it\u2019s passed quickly.<\/p>\n<p>The issue is this: when companies are in the middle of a product liability case, they often demand, as a stipulation of their settlement, that individuals involved must agree to terms that will prevent them from disclosing any public safety hazards that may have been uncovered during litigation. This is a totally anti-consumer practice: allowing the sealing of all litigation records, especially when they involve matters that affect public health and safety, endangers consumers and encourages corporate wrongdoing.<\/p>\n<p>The new act preserves a company\u2019s rights to protect important \u201ctrade secrets,\u201d so this should be a new rule all parties can live with. We\u2019ll continue to follow this bill as it makes its way through the legislative process. You go, Judiciary Committee! Next up: Senate Floor.<!-- content_before_flip_end --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Three cheers for the Senate Judiciary Committee, which approved what the New York Times called in a March 12 editorial \u201ca modest but potentially life-saving bill\u201d known as the Sunshine [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3144"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3144"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11711,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3144\/revisions\/11711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}