SALEM — On a 15-15 vote, the Oregon Senate defeated Thursday a bill that would have redirected the unclaimed money damages from class action judgments or settlements in state court so as to bolster legal aid services for low-income Oregonians.

After a rancorous debate, Sen. Betsy Johnson, a Scappoose Democrat, joined all 14 Senate Republicans in voting against House Bill 4143.

Under current law, unclaimed funds — a frequent byproduct of class actions — are returned to the company that lost the lawsuit.

Allowing at-fault companies to reclaim sometimes large portions of the damages they are found to owe doesn’t make sense, backers of the bill argued. They pointed out that Oregon is one of only two states where unclaimed damages are automatically returned in full to class action defendants.

“It’s time to correct this wrong,” said Sen. Floyd Prozanski, a Eugene Democrat.

Opponents said the bill was much more complicated than that. Among other issues, they argued that it would change long-standing class action processes so as to make it easier for trial lawyers to file lawsuits without first having to identify the potential victims of a company’s alleged malfeasance.

“This bill does not just send the leftover pie to legal aid, it changes how the courts determine the size of the pie in the first place,” Johnson said.

A long-debated issue, the policy has taken on added significance this year because of two ongoing multimillion dollar class action lawsuits against oil company BP and tobacco company Philip Morris. HB 4143 was written so as to affect any future judgment or settlement in those suits.

Senate Republicans were furious that Democratic leaders allowed the floor vote to occur at all, given that the bill was widely expected to fail.

Supporters of the bill “didn’t want the policy, they wanted a political vote,” said Sen. Tim Knopp, a Bend Republican. “We could have had a bipartisan bill. The choice was made not to do that.”

Senate Republican Leader Ted Ferrioli of John Day said, in a prepared statement, that the vote was intended to “embarrass” his caucus.

Republicans unsuccessfully offered a minority report — their own version of the bill — that would have split the unclaimed damages between legal aid services and programs for victims of domestic violence. Their version also attempted to block any attorneys’ fees on the unclaimed damages, and would have applied only to lawsuits started after the policy’s passage — leaving the BP and Philip Morris suits unaffected.

The minority report failed on a party-line 14-16 vote.

Sen. Bruce Starr, a Hillsboro Republican, said the “retroactive piece (of HB 4143) is the worst part.”

“Apparently it’s the right thing to do to retroactively change the rules in the middle of the games,” he said.

Conversely, Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, a Beaverton Democrat, said the vote was “not about politics.

“This is about doing justice, this is about acts of love and kindness, this is about walking in the ways God asks us to do,” she said.

Senate President Peter Courtney, a Salem Democrat, acknowledged that he “could have stopped” the vote, but said that, as a former legal aid attorney, the policy was important to him.

“If I’ve done anything to hurt this Senate today (by allowing the vote), I will take it to my grave,” he said. “That was not my intention.”

After the House passed HB 4143 on a 36-21 vote last month, business groups mobilized against the bill.

The policy also drew fire from Dave Frohnmayer, the former University of Oregon president and Oregon attorney general, whose Eugene firm of Harrang Long Gary Rudnick is representing BP and Philip Morris in their class action suits.

Follow Saul on Twitter @SaulAHubbard. Emails should be directed to saul.hubbard@registerguard.com.