"The Senate Judiciary Committee took an important step last week when it approved a bill to curb abuses in class-action lawsuits. Class actions are an important tool for protecting citizens' rights. But currently, most class-action suits must be heard in state courts. So companies operating nationwide get haled into local courts that plaintiffs' lawyers have found particularly willing to accept class actions - and to hit out-of-state firms with costly judgments," the Christian Science Monitor reports here.