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June 15, 2001 at 08:00 PM
NU Online News Service, June 15, 1:35 p.m. — Ramani Ayer, chairman of The Hartford Financial Services Group, Hartford, says insurance companies and independent agents need to work together to fight class-action lawsuit abuse.
Ayer says Congress should act to keep class-action suits from clogging the courts, depleting court resources and running up attorneys’ fees, according to a summary of remarks Ayer made in Orlando at the Florida Association of Independent Agents?f annual conference.
Until recently, Ayer told the independent agents, companies waged most courtroom battles on a case-by-case basis, so damage from a single adverse decision was limited.
“With class-action lawsuits,” he said “there is a multiplier effect: even cases with very nominal damages to individual class members can result in billion-dollar verdicts against the defendants.”
