A recent study of insurance “loss costs” in Washington State indicates that the 2007 passage of a plaintiffs’ bar-backed liability expansion has, duh, led to higher costs and higher premiums
Judicial HellholesIn a year when many statehouses are lining up in favor of economic growth and against parasitic personal injury lawyers, Oklahoma lawmakers have sent to the governor a bill comprising reasonable limits on awards for noneconomic damages in civil lawsuits
Points of LightCalifornia karma and a disgruntled would-be reality show producer have turned the tables on Charlie with a $20 million lawsuit of their own
Judicial HellholesTo the credit of some Colorado lawmakers, legislation to eliminate “phantom damages” easily passed in the House, 37-27, earlier this year. But, at the expense of auto and health care insurance premium payers, trial lawyers have just managed to kill the bill in a Senate committee
Judicial HellholesAs the first quarter of 2011 draws to a close, it’s an appropriate time to update both some bad news and good news from once and future Judicial Hellholes
Judicial HellholesEvidence of costly trial-lawyer malfeasance has continued to mount with, among other items, the discovery in West Virginia that fraudulent chest X-rays were the catalyst for asbestos cases, runaway auto-accident fraud in South Florida and documentary film outtakes in which brazen plans to manipulate and intimidate a judge are openly discussed
Judicial HellholesThe biased handling of a pernicious new wave of asbestos lawsuits has McLean County poised to join Illinois’ notorious list of Judicial Hellholes
Judicial HellholesAs home to the reigning #1 Judicial Hellhole of Philadephia, Pennsylvania is long overdue for substantive tort reforms. Poised to spark a few Points of Light this legislative session, state lawmakers in Harrisburg are being urged by the business community and many in the media to modernize liability law by replacing the current and inherently unfair “joint and several” standard with one of “proportional” liability
Points of LightDespite what were supposed to be small business-friendly reforms to California law two years ago, the pernicious wheelchair lawsuit industry there rolls on, destroying beloved community businesses and jobs
Judicial HellholesAs home to more crazy lawsuits than practically any other state, California is the perfect place for conspiracy theorist and self-proclaimed “winner” Charlie Sheen to sue/blame former employers for his precipitous fall from grace
Judicial HellholesThe defendants, who last year came out on the the losing side of an obscene and insane half-billion dollar jackpot verdict in Clark County, Nevada (currently ranked as the #6 Judicial Hellhole) have appealed their case to the Nevada Supreme Court.
Judicial HellholesATRA general counsel Victor Schwartz will testify in support of the Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act (LARA) during a hearing of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution Friday morning, March 11.
Points of LightThough his ruling will likely be appealed by plaintiffs’ lawyers or their allies at the Department of Justice, U.S. District Judge Dan Aaron Polster in Ohio has ruled unconstitutional the so-called false marking law which has recently been exploited in a new wave of lawsuits that could bankrupt many consumer product manufacturers and kill countless jobs.
Points of LightAs reported by the New York Daily News, a New Jersey woman who tried to perpetrate a coupon con on a department store has conspired with a personal injury lawyer relative of hers in Queens, N.Y., to gin up a class action because, she alleges, she’s owed 80 cents.
Judicial HellholesTucked in among various belt-tightening job cuts and agency consolidations in the governor’s budget is the proposed creation of a new Department of Financial Regulation, controlled by a governor-appointed superintendent with ominously broad powers to promulgate new regulations and level lawsuits relating to banking, insurance and consumer protection.
Judicial HellholesQ-Why do personal injury lawyers engage in PIP fraud? A-They have great expectations
UncategorizedWith Florida struggling to contain a costly epidemic of insurance fraud, personal injury lawyers convening in Miami this week should be asked what steps they’re willing to take to help reduce such fraud
Judicial HellholesIn a weekend opinion piece in the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, ATRA director of communications Darren McKinney said New York lawmakers must choose between honest, hardworking businessmen and women, or the parasitic slip-and-fall racketeers who are bleeding the state’s economy dry
Judicial HellholesJere Beasley, Alabama’s infamous class-action impresario and would-be Dickie Scruggs, has headed for the border. Alleging that his own law firm’s “independent” testing indicates that Taco Bell’s beef tacos include only 35% beef, Beasley is suing the fast-food chain in – you guessed it – California, the nation’s best place to have a meritless consumer class-action certified and taken seriously by a kooky judge
Judicial HellholesIt’s precisely the type of lawsuit that gave California a reputation for consumer lawsuit abuse. Lawyers sued the lock manufacturer, Kwikset for deceptive advertising because products, labeled as “Made in the U.S.A.,” included components, such as screws, produced overseas. In a dissent Justice Ming W. Chin, joined by Justice Carol A. Corrigan, recognized that “[t]his cannot be what the electorate intended” in voting for a measure intended to reduce frivolous lawsuits.
Judicial HellholesAs doctors and businesses, fearing meritless lawsuits, continue to leave the hellholish environs of New York state, Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City (aka “Sue York”), is urging members of the state bar association to please, please, please support reasonable tort reform measures, according to the New York Law Journal
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