New Law Restricts Civil Lawsuits
Backed by long list of special interests, led by mega-campaign donor WMC.
Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce. Photo by Riley Vetterkind / Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.
Republican Gov. Scott Walker signed a bill on Tuesday sought by big business campaign contributors that slashes the amount of time people can sue for numerous injuries.
The proposal, Assembly Bill 773, reduces from six to three years the statutes of limitations for civil lawsuits involving liability, fraud, rights violations, and injury to character. And, the deadline that people can sue for injuries caused by property improvements would be cut from 10 years to six years.
Judges will also be allowed to choose attorneys in class action lawsuits and limit discovery. Parties in a lawsuit would not be required to retrieve old electronic data or, in some cases, electronic records that are too time-consuming or costly to produce.
The bill was strongly backed by numerous powerful special interests – including business, manufacturers, construction, insurance, agriculture, and hospitals – led by Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC), the state’s largest business group.
WMC has doled out more than $18 million since January 2010 to support Republican and conservative candidates for legislative and statewide offices. The bill was approved by the GOP-controlled legislature along party lines with Republicans favoring it and Democrats opposing it.
In addition to WMC’s outside spending on elections, between January 2011 and June 2017, more than a dozen special interests represented by WMC have directly contributed $35.5 million to Walker, who is seeking reelection to a third four-year term in November.
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Career Politician and Fulltime Big Government mooching Corporate Puppet Scott Walker is just doing the bidding of his Big Corporate Masters all while mooching off of us, the taxpayers with his Big Government salary with lavish benefits and public subsidized housing on top. What’s this unskilled Big Government mooching charlatan going to do when we drop him like a bad habit in the November election? He has been in office and mooching for over 25 years! Walker has never worked a single day in his adult life in the free market or private sector, not one day! Career Politician Scott Walker has no degree and no skills except of course for being quite adept at lying, cheating and scheming. Maybe Trump or Faux News will throw him a scrap? Or hey, I hear FoxCON needs more slave wage labor. At least then he could continue his long history of government subsidized jobs!
Dump Walker 2018
I cannot imagine a single benefit to me, my family, my neighbors, my community, my village, my county or my state from this this legislation except that it may give its supporters the rope they need to hang themselves. Unlike waiving environmental safeguards, this Walker-era capitulation to his powerful supporters can be undone when a more ethical government assumes power. For our Taiwanese friends, let me say in the words of Jeffrey Lebowski, “這種侵略不應該站起來, 夥計。”
More scumbag legislation from the Scumbag King Scott Walker