This week the U.S. House is expected to consider H.R. 2341 (introduced by Reps. Rick Boucher (D-VA) and Bob Goodlatte (R-VA)), which would reform the country's arcane system for certifying class action lawsuits. The basic purpose of the bill is to limit a loophole in the normal rules for determining whether a lawsuit involving parties from different states is heard in federal or state courts. Thanks to this loophole, many enormous class action suits involving plaintiffs from nearly every state are filed in a handful of state courts, often-bucolic venues where lawsuits are considered something of a local economic development resource. The peculiar result is that these lawyer-selected courts are not only making decisions, but also setting policy -- for other states and for the whole country.

As constitutional law scholar Walter Dellinger concluded in 1999 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee: "We are left with the strange, and in my view, indefensible situation in which federal courts have jurisdiction over a garden-variety state law claim arising out of an auto accident between a driver from one state and a driver from another state. But at the same time, federal jurisdiction does not encompass large-scale, interstate class actions involving thousands of plaintiffs from multiple states, defendants from many states, the laws of several states, and hundreds of millions of dollars -- cases that have obvious and significant implications for the national economy."

Aside from its lack of logic, this system does not lend itself to justice for aggrieved citizens. As the Washington Post observed in a March 9 editorial endorsing H.R. 2341: "In normal litigation, aggrieved clients hire lawyers to represent them. In many class actions, by contrast, lawyers appoint themselves to represent large numbers of people who may have no beef with the company they find themselves suing, and who may not even learn they are suing anyone. At settlement time, the lawyers cash in, while the 'clients' get coupons for product upgrades."

The bill does nothing to change the right to sue bad actors, or bring class-action suits. It would merely extend to class-action suits the same rules of civil procedure that permit defendants or plaintiffs in multi-state cases to move them into federal court, thus eliminating the current crazy-quilt system and, one hopes, its distorted outcomes. We join House New Democrats Cal Dooley (D-CA) and Jim Moran (D-VA), and Senate New Democrats Tom Carper (D-DE) and Herb Kohl (D-WI) in supporting the most modest and sensible of legal reform measures.