By Sarah Steelman

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Senate Bill 686 is waiting for action by the Senate Judiciary Committee. This bill is about letting sunshine into the courtroom.

In the wake of the Firestone tire scandal, many other states are considering legislation that would ban confidential settlements in cases that compromise public health or safety.

As you have heard and read, there have been reports that Firestone secretly settled wrongful-death suits for years while continuing to produce the tires that allegedly caused these fatalities. There have been many other cases involving defective or dangerous products that are settled in secret, thereby causing more harm to the public because we do not know about them.

That is part of the problem: We do not know how many defective products are out there. That is why we need legislation to prevent court records from being sealed if there is a serious risk to safety and health.

Why should stringent standards be in place to protect the public's interests? There are usually five main reasons cited for opposing secrecy in the courtroom:

1. Secrecy keeps vital health and safety information from consumers.

2. Secrecy creates more litigation.

3. American courts are public institutions.

4. American courts operate under a presumption of openness.

5. Secrecy threatens to undermine public respect for courts.

One can think back about the many well-known products that caused direct harm to individuals. Bjork-Shiley artificial-heart valves, Dalkon shields and Ford Pinto fuel tanks are just a few.

I want to make it clear that I believe the importance of protecting lives is, by itself, sufficient to outweigh all the arguments that can be mustered by those who may oppose this bill. However, the Enron debacle has brought to light the disastrous consequences secrecy may have not only for individual investors, but for our markets and capitalism itself.

Some may disagree as to the propriety of our product-liability laws or the burden judgments may have on some industries. However, we all are aware that the cost of defective products may have a significant effect on the price of a company's stock.

For example, Ford stock is basically at half its value of a year ago. Bridgestone stock has plummeted. We now know that insiders had knowledge of these defects and the subsequent litigation prior to the time investors learned about them. This cannot be allowed.

The Jan. 19 edition of the Economist had an interesting article about Enron that argued that the real scandal was the harm, whose full impact we may not yet have felt, and the damage to America's capital markets, which had been known as the strongest and most reliable in history.

The article says, "The capital markets, and indeed capitalism itself, can function efficiently only if the highest standards of accounting, disclosure and transparency are observed."

Given the role of litigation in our society and the importance of information that may bear on the efficacy of new products, we cannot and should not shield investors, some of whom are investing their life's savings, from important and even critical information.

This information is needed for investors to make smart financial decisions. More importantly, this information is needed for consumers to make smart marketplace decisions about the safety of the products they are purchasing.

Opening sealed records regarding defective products is good for consumers, and it is good for capitalism.

Sarah Steelman of Rolla, Mo., represents the 16th District in the Missouri Senate.