The Nation - News from May 17, 1985

Consumer groups claimed victory over big business when a Senate panel rejected a measure that the groups said would have made it more difficult to win product liability claims. “This has been a knock-down, drag-out fight and we won,” said Joan Claybrook, head of Public Citizen, a Ralph Nader-founded umbrella organization that represents more than a dozen advocacy groups. However, a spokesman for the Coalition of Uniform Product Liability Laws and the Product Liability Alliance, a manufacturers group, said that it was premature for anyone to claim victory and that the measure will probably be brought up again this year.