House Judiciary Committee passes bill backers call a check on ‘junk lawsuits’; opponents say it weakens consumer protections

At the committee’s final meeting of the session, the House Judiciary Committee voted to pass Senate Bill 441, a measure backers described as a way to curb “junk lawsuits” tied to prescription discount cards. Supporters said the bill would protect Arkansas businesses and courts from litigation where no consumer was harmed; opponents said it would undermine consumer-protection enforcement and could gut an existing statute.

Senator Bart Hester, State Senator, District 33, told the committee the bill was aimed at out-of-state law firms that he said file repeat suits in Arkansas against companies such as Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Walmart and Simmons Bank. “This is the junk lawsuit bill,” Hester said, arguing that many of the suits named in related litigation involved plaintiffs who were not harmed and served mainly to enrich law firms.

The bill’s language, as discussed at the hearing, would (according to witnesses’ descriptions) add a requirement that a plaintiff be “injured” to bring suit, add a 30-day written notice-and-cure process,…