SACRAMENTO - California personal injury attorneys managed to push a new "bad faith" bill through the Legislature last night putting Californians one step closer to a frivolous lawsuit bonanza, according to the Civil Justice Association of California (CJAC).

Assembly Bill 1309 (Scott) was amended last night and passed through the Senate and the Assembly without being reviewed by the usual policy and fiscal committees. The measure will allow unscrupulous plaintiff attorneys to bring frivolous lawsuits against the insurance company of the person they say damaged their client, claiming the insurers settlement offer was too small or not made quickly enough. These so-called "third party bad faith" lawsuits, before they were outlawed in the 1980's, generated huge fees for personal injury lawyers and caused insurance costs and court caseloads to skyrocket.

"To know how bad this bill is for the general public you only have to know how the trial lawyer industry rammed it through the legislature in violation of all the rules of open hearings and review designed to permit public participation in the lawmaking process," said John H. Sullivan, CJAC president. "It is telling that such a blatant abuse of our legislative system was engineered by lawyers who are supposed to be advocates of the rule of law."