mr. speaker , i thank the gentleman from wisconsin for yielding me this time , and i thank the gentleman from new york ( mr. weiner ) xz4004260 for raising the points on those cases on the class action wheel of fortune because he makes a good point . 
in not one of those cases was there any wrongdoing found on the part of any of those defendants because all of those were settlements . 
they were extortionate settlements because they are in the jurisdiction of a court where they know they are facing a hanging judge and a hanging jury . 
the gentleman also raised another good point , and we should not leave plaintiffs in the situation where they get a 33-cent check or a coupon for a box of cheerios , like in another case , and that is what this bill does . 
it requires extra-special scrutiny for coupon settlement cases so the courts will no longer let the manufacturers ' attorneys and the defendants ' attorneys come in with a settlement that simply gets out of the case , that gives the plaintiffs ' attorney a huge sum of money and everyone else walks away and the plaintiffs get left holding the bag . 
mr. speaker , the gentleman ought to talk to his colleague , the senior senator from new york , the predecessor of his seat , who supported this legislation . 
in addition , when the gentleman talks about abuse of plaintiffs in these cases , take into consideration the nationwide class action lawsuit filed in alabama against the bank of boston , headquartered in massachusetts , over mortgage escrow accounts . 
the class members won the case but actually lost money . 
amazing . 
under the settlement agreement , the 700 , 000 class members received small payments of just a couple of dollars or no money at all . 
about a year later , they found out that anywhere from $ 90 to $ 140 had been deducted from their escrow accounts . 
for what ? 
to pay their lawyers ' legal fees , of what ? 
$ 8.5 million . 
and when some of those class members , some of those beleaguered plaintiffs , that i am glad the gentleman from new york is standing up for , sued their class action lawyers for malpractice , the lawyers countersued them for $ 25 million saying that their former clients were trying to harass them . 
this is an extortionate practice . 
a small cartel of class action lawyers around the country are abusing the system and we need to change it . 
