10 



Mr. Hansen. Mr. Unger, you know, in the tort reform area, we 

 find — and I have worked on that for 30 years. I did the first no- 

 fault in America for products Uabihty, and in the last term, I did 

 the one on light aircraft on the statute of repose. We have found 

 that sitting on the special task force the Speaker has — over these 

 years I have found that many cases in times we find totally non- 

 meritorious claims. 



Orrin Hatch, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee over in the 

 Senate side, has worked diligently to stop the number of appeals 

 on capital punishment. And if you watched Good Morning America 

 this morning, it took 17 years to get this guy that they got yester- 

 day, an admitted murderer, and he had something like 28 appeals. 

 Twenty-eight times he got a bite of the apple. That is ridiculous, 

 and every time he lost. 



When you look at some of these things in tort liability, you find 

 why do we give them that many appeals, and why can they strain 

 on the net when we have a confession of some counting going into 

 the criminal side? They are going into your side over here. 



Don't you feel that there is too many nonmeritorious claims 

 being filed and things that are only there to be nuisance type of 

 things and mischief type of legal procedures rather than legitimate 

 discussion and legitimate arguments regarding whether or not a 

 timber sale should be allowed? 



Mr. Unger. I don't think that it is appropriate for me to try to 

 characterize any appeal by any group or any citizen in advance as 

 nonmeritorious or frivolous, but I am happy that we find that in 

 the operation of our project appeals system that we are finding that 

 we need to reverse only about five percent of the contested deci- 

 sions that are appealed. So we think that we are doing a good job. 



Mr. Hansen. Don't you think it could be done better that we 

 could somewhat screen out the nonmeritorious situations? 



Mr. Unger. This has been discussed over and over again, Mr. 

 Chairman, and nobody has yet been able to construct a good defini- 

 tion or good criterion to use in saying that this appeal is not justifi- 

 able and this one is. 



Mr. Hansen. That is why you are going through the same frus- 

 trations a Member of Congress goes through. See, we form things 

 by committee, and they say a committee designed a giraffe, you 

 know, and nothing came out right. We are finding ourselves in a 

 position where we have got — it is like mixing paint. We keep going 

 and pretty soon you get mud. You just keep adding colors. 



Well, we almost have to strike out and try something and then 

 perfect it and refine it. So we maybe have to give you something 

 that immediately you folks will jump on and say, "But it has got 

 this mistake and that mistake and the other mistake, and I am 

 really worried about that, and so what? We will try and run it." 

 And then you guys have to kind of hunker down and say, "We will 

 live with it." 



Because what we are getting out of people — I don't know what 

 this next panel is going to say, but in the six hearings we have had 

 and around the United States and all the people I have talked to 

 in my 16 years on this committee, I have come to the conclusion 

 that people are very frustrated about this. 



