A consulting group’s annual report shows that the percentage of large corporations facing high-risk “bet-the-company” lawsuits has quadrupled in the past two years
UncategorizedAfter ATRA and others criticized abuse of multidistrict litigation, the federal panel overseeing such litigation denied more requests for MDL consolidation than it granted last year — the first time that’s happened in a decade
Points of Light, UncategorizedTo no one’s surprise, a new study shows that, on average, personal injury lawyers who concoct and gin up what ATRA calls “empty suit” litigation walk off with nearly 40% of the money from settlements and verdicts while their clients typically get less than 9%, with the rest going to other lawyers and unrelated groups
UncategorizedThe American Tort Reform Association today offered condolences to the family and colleagues of a longtime tort reform ally in California, John H. Sullivan, who lost a courageous battle with cancer last week at the age of 73
UncategorizedThe American Tort Reform Association today criticized GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump after he threatened during a radio interview to sue rival Sen. Ted Cruz over allegedly untrue comments made by Cruz and his campaign staff, which Trump says cost him a first-place finish in Monday’s Iowa Caucuses
UncategorizedIn an effort to appeal to “green” car buyers and radical environmentalists within regulatory agencies, Honda switched from wrapping some of its cars’ wiring in slow-to-degrade plastics to a soy-based casing. That’s right, Honda had begun to wrap its wires in tofu
Judicial Hellholes, UncategorizedOn January 21 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that an offer of full payment for an individual claim, prior to the deadline for filing a motion for class certification, does not end the claim or prevent class certification
UncategorizedWASHINGTON, D.C., December 17, 2014 – The American Tort Reform Foundation issued its annual Judicial Hellholes® report today, naming courts in California, New York City, Florida, Missouri, Illinois, Louisiana, Texas and Virginia among the nation’s “most unfair” in their handling of civil litigation.
UncategorizedAs is almost always the case with contrived consumer class actions, lawyers who served up the now infamous Subway “footlong” litigation are poised to feed on more than a half-million dollars in fees while their putative clients go hungry
UncategorizedHoping to inspire Congress, 2016 presidential candidates and the media to pay closer attention to the lawsuit industry’s extraordinary access to and influence with Obama administration regulators, the American Tort Reform Association and the U.S. Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform today released “The Trial Lawyer Underground: Covertly Lobbying the Executive Branch,” a report documenting a nearly seven-year expansion of civil liability at the expense of investment, innovation and economic competitiveness
UncategorizedIn denying an asbestos defendant’s motion for summary judgment, notoriously plaintiff-friendly NYCAL Judge Sherry Klein Heitler succumbed to some March madness of her own, calling the motion a “drastic remedy” and relying on testimony from a witness in an unrelated case from Maryland 14 years earlier to do so. Talk about going out of your way to please the plaintiffs’ bar
Judicial Hellholes, UncategorizedCiting recent events that have further exposed the “corruption and outright fraud that have long been endemic to asbestos litigation,” the American Tort Reform Association today launched a new website that “will document the overwhelming case for substantive reforms”
UncategorizedWith recently unsealed documents from the Garlock bankruptcy poised to reveal still further manipulation of evidence and even outright fraud by the asbestos litigation industry, the 2014-2015 Judicial Hellholes report shines its white hot spotlight on a number of jurisdictions with active asbestos dockets — including an all-new #1 ranked Judicial Hellhole — as well as a variety of other jurisdictions where the scales of civil justice are out of balance
UncategorizedThe American Tort Reform Association today filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), urging the high court to hear BP’s appeal of critical class action issues stemming from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill
UncategorizedWith emotional incitement of juries, the personal injury bar continues to draw furiously on the dwindling butt of tobacco litigation in Florida, where a preposterous and plainly unconstitutional punitive damages award of $23.6 billion — that’s billion with a “b” –was rendered July 18
UncategorizedMinnesota’s Supreme Court has laudably resisted the temptation — succumbed to by many other high courts — to expand liability under the state’s consumer protection statute with an appropriately straightforward interpretation of the law
Points of Light, UncategorizedThe Mississippi Supreme Court has ruled in favor of Exxon Mobil’s motion for summary judgment after the energy giant had found itself in the jaws of litigious neighbors
Points of Light, UncategorizedThe remaining defendants in Feld Entertainment’s RICO lawsuit have settled for $15.75 million a case that stemmed from their original lawsuit that fraudulently accused Feld’s Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus of abusing its elephants. Here’s a Feld news release
UncategorizedThe Food and Drug Administration has quietly proposed a new rule that will inevitably lead to higher prices for generic drugs, and it only consulted with personal injury lawyers before doing so
UncategorizedOn Tuesday, April 8, a federal jury in Louisiana ordered Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. and Eli Lilly Co. to pay $9 billion in punitive damages in a case involving the diabetes drug, Actos, after Takeda failed to protect documents that may have supported the plaintiff’s case
UncategorizedThe Times-Picayune reports reports that the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s dismissal of lawsuits filed by 11 Louisiana parishes based on state law, ruling that the claims against BP were preempted by federal law
Judicial Hellholes, Uncategorized