Congressman Conyers has taken a leading role in fighting against unfair tort reform proposals. Regarding medical malpractice, the Congressman has worked tirelessly to champion patients' rights while addressing the rising costs of medical malpractice insurance premium.

Congressman Conyers held a medical malpractice victims forum on malpractice issues in early 2003. During this forum, House Democrats heard powerful testimony from dozens of victims of medical malpractice from every area of the country, every political persuasion, and every walk of life. Every victim testified resoundingly that the President's medical malpractice insurance company giveaway would be a disaster to victims of malpractice.

As a result of the shocking testimony from the victims forum and from the Judiciary Committee hearing, Congressman Conyers, along with Congressman Dingell, introduced legislation to respond to the real problems in the medical malpractice insurance market - namely, higher prices driven by lack of competition and investment losses by insurers leading to a boom bust cycle. Specifically, this bill responds to concerns that medical malpractice is not available in parts of the country and to the complaint that medical malpractice insurance premiums are being driven higher as a result of frivolous complaints.

Congressman Conyers has also continuously fought the Republican efforts to push class action reform and bar ordinary Americans from holding powerful defendants accountable. The bill passed by the House would apply retroactively to pending cases, disrupting legitimate cases where thousands upon thousands of legal hours may have been expended. Addition, the House bill will also make it far more difficult to pursue civil rights class actions because it does not permit the lead class representative to regain a job loss resulting from discrimination. The Congressman proposed a democratic substitute that was substantially better than H.R. 1115 because it respected the sovereignty of state courts and provided substantial protection to consumers and other class action plaintiffs against practices that could result in unfair settlements. Although the substitute did not pass the House, it gained substantial support by the Democratic caucus.