Washington, D.C. – House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (CA-23) released the following statement on House passage of H.R. 3624, the Fraudulent Joinder Prevention Act:
“Federal courts provide a neutral forum to resolve disputes between citizens from different states so that there is no appearance of an unfair advantage to one party over the other in these cases. Currently, some trial lawyers are attempting to wrongfully deprive parties of this neutral forum by fraudulently suing local defendants, not because these local defendants have any real connection to the lawsuit, but because suing them keeps the case in the lawyer’s preferred venue. This may help the trial lawyers, but it isn’t fair to people and it’s an abuse of our court system. Representative Ken Buck’s (CO-04) bill will help resolve this problem by clarifying and establishing uniform standards for applying joinder rules. With these litigation reforms, our court system can operate with the impartiality Americans both expect and deserve.”