The Civil Justice Association of California announced today it is sponsoring legislation to stop frivolous lawsuits being filed under the state's unfair business competition law.

"It's time the Legislature reigned in lawyers who are using the law to harass businesses into settlements that produce little more than attorney fees," said John H. Sullivan, president of the Sacramento-based legal reform association.

The legislation (AB 2186 - Robert Pacheco) would block private lawyers from suing a business under the state Unfair Competition Law unless they have a bona fide client who has actually been injured.

"Right now," Sullivan said, the law lets a business be targeted with a lawsuit whenever a lawyer decides it is doing something 'unfair.' That's how we can have lawsuits like the one filed against an apartment complex for discrimination even though none of the people bringing the suit showed they had ever lived, tried to live, or desired to live at the apartments," Sullivan said. That's how a San Diego lawyer could file a suit against a Silicon Valley online golf retailer claiming it had violated a federal law by not listing the manufacturing site of clothing offered on its web site."

The Unfair Competition Law has been on the books for years, protecting consumers and businesses from companies that try to win a commercial edge by breaking sales and advertising laws. It has been commonly used by district attorneys Ü a practice the Civil Justice Association does not want to curtail.

Some attorneys have been using the law as a low cost substitute for class action lawsuits. The lawyers claim to be suing on behalf of consumers, but don't have to tell consumers about the lawsuit. Not only does this leave people totally unable to control a case filed on their behalf, but it leaves defendants without protection from repeated lawsuits over the same activity. The proposed law would prevent this abuse of current statutes.

Lawyers have been adding Unfair Competition Law allegations to lawsuits brought on other grounds, sometimes to evade lawsuit filing deadlines and other times to increase the economic threat to the defendant and squeeze out bigger settlements. In fact, the state's plaintiffs' lawyer association held a seminar on how the law "can be a value-added component of your litigation."

The Civil Justice Association of California is a coalition of citizens, taxpayers, businesses, local governments, professionals, manufacturers, financial institutions, insurers, and medical organizations. It is active in the Legislature and the courts, working to reduce excessive and unwarranted litigation and restore balance to the civil justice system.