Summary
Unlike the state Supreme Court, Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr., Lt. Governor Gary Herbert, and Attorney General Mark Shurtleffare advocates for the rule of law with records of support for a fair and predictable liability climate in Utah. 3 INDIANA Indiana maintains a liability climate conducive to growth and job creation. Dann filed a lawsuit against 10 paint manufacturers in an effort to further expand state liability law on a public nuisance theory.\n 47 PENNSYLVANIA The Keystone State is experiencing a growing medical malpractice disaster, described in a recent Harvard School of Public Health reportas an "extreme-level" medical-liability crisis. Activist Attorney General Patrick Lynch has joined 16 other attorneys general in a petition to the U.S. Court of Appeals to compel the Environmental Protection Agency to adopt stringent new regulations related to greenhouse-gas emissions and alleged global warming.
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Dire States
Commentators taking note of the recent felony convictions of several high-profile plaintiffs' lawyers, including Bill Lerach and Melvyn Weiss, have declared that the tort reform battle is over and the corporate defenders have won. Nothing could be further from the truth. While a few big guys may be cooling their heels in jail, it's still not safe to tread in America's litigation waters.
Even states considered to have favorable litigation climates might not stay mat way. In fact, 10 of the 18 states in mis year's Boardroom Guide to State Litigation Climates that have liability climates conducive to growth and job creation are also identified as "atrisk" states. In other words, the liability climates in these states are trending downward, while tort costs continue to rise.The Guide is a collaboration of Directorship and the American Justice Partnership (AJP), a coalition of more than 70 state and national organizations that work together to achieve tort and other businessliability reform at the state level through legislative action and public support for pro-reform candidates for state office.Why the mobilization? Trial Lawyers Inc. has created nearly a trillion-dollar tort industry. If America's tort system was a country and tort awards were its gross domestic product, our tort system would be the 17th largest economy. The total direct and indirect costs of our tort system are $865 billion annually; Australia's GDP is only $24 billion more than this.Then there's the danger of the "litigation trifecta." The first stage was asbestos lawsuits, the longestrunning mass-tort category in history. The second stage was the $265-billion national tobacco settlement between states and tobacco companies. The R&D arm of Trial Lawyers Inc. hopes to cash in on the third stage of the trifecta: global climate-change litigation. If the plaintiffs' lawyers hit the "litigation trifecta," U.S. tort costs could soon exceed Russia's GDP of $1.2 trillion.One of the first of these lawsuits was recently filed in Alaska by an Eskimo village against 24 defendants ...See the full content of this document
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