The Civil Justice Association of California (CJAC) remains strongly opposed to Senate Bill 11 (Escutia) as amended on September 6, 2001.

In its present form, SB 11 is based on the premise that confidentiality is dangerous per se. This premise is wrong: businesses legitimately depend upon the confidentiality of their competitive information, including intellectual property, trade secrets, business strategies, and competitive analyses. Protecting this information is vital to the competitiveness of companies and their capacity to contribute to California's economy. A private lawyer's filing a civil lawsuit is totally insufficient justification to strip away current, reasonable privacy protection in litigation.

During the time since SB 11 (and its then-identical companion AB 36) were introduced last December, a number of developments have undercut both the major purported reason for the bill and the process it would establish. Today SB 11 and AB 36 are disparate, confusing solutions searching for a problem.

Please consider:

1. Proponents of SB 11 have been using the drama of tire failures and rollover accidents to create interest in their legislation - but have NOT been telling people that Congress has enacted a powerful, effective response.

2. The very lawyers who want SB 11 to give them the power over disclosing lawsuit information were revealed by the New York Times to have kept information about a pattern of tire failures from federal regulators for four years rather than risk an investigation that might have weakened their cases.

3. Health care researchers have shown how their work to develop new life-saving products would be seriously damaged by SB 11.

4. Despite being introduced in 16 other states, bills like SB 11 have been rejected or shelved by every state legislature considering them.

5. California already has the toughest penalties in the nation for withholding information about dangerous products.

6. Support is growing for a separate bill (AB 881 - Simitian) that expedites potentially important public safety information to regulators without jeopardizing business confidentiality or providing personal injury lawyers with unfair leverage over innocent defendants.

Additional information on these six points is attached.

More than 400 firms and organizations are strongly opposed to SB 11. They recognize that SB 11 is a plaintiffs' lawyer revenue-raiser, not pro-consumer legislation.

Nothing the proponents have presented since their introduction press conference on December 4, 2000 has overcome the essential finding of a federal court study of confidential protective orders in civil lawsuits: "There is no evidence that protective orders in fact create any significant problem in concealing information about public hazards or in impeding efficient sharing of discovery information." - Federal Judicial Conference letter to Congress, 1998.

We respectfully urge that all members of the Assembly oppose SB 11 as unnecessary, irresponsible legislation.

cc:    Senator Martha Escutia
      Drew Liebert & Gene Wong, Assembly & Senate Judiciary Committees
      Mark Redmond & Mike Peterson, Assembly & Senate Republican Caucus
      All Legislators