The American Tort Reform Foundation issued its 2017-2018 Judicial Hellholes® report today, naming courts in Florida, California, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Illinois and Louisiana among the nation’s “most unfair” in their handling of civil litigation.
UncategorizedJust three days after a Missouri appeals court vacated the first of four monstrous, if scientifically groundless verdicts won since 2015 in St. Louis by plaintiffs alleging their use of talcum powder caused ovarian cancer, a trial judge in Los Angles last Friday reversed a $417 million plaintiff’s verdict in a comparable case
Judicial Hellholes, UncategorizedNot everyone at NPR is zealously anti-business. And not all their reporting about lawsuits targeting American businesses necessarily takes the side, implicitly or explicitly, of plaintiffs’ lawyers and their clients. But most of the public radio network’s legal reporting does, and two stories airing on the same day last week showed enough bias-by-omission to leave listeners wondering if NPR has come to stand for National Plaintiffs Radio
UncategorizedResponding to a defense motion that cited an important 8-1 U.S. Supreme Court decision rendered earlier in the day, a St. Louis trial judge yesterday declared a mistrial in the sixth such trial there in which plaintiffs allege, contrary to widely accepted science, that the makers of talcum powder are responsible for their ovarian cancer
Judicial Hellholes, Points of LightWith today’s announced decision of a third significant jurisdictional case by the U.S. Supreme Court this term, the American Tort Reform Association applauded the “trifecta,” calling the decisions “welcomed relief for corporate defendants targeted by personal injury lawyers, with plenty of help from plaintiff-friendly courts in California, Missouri, Montana, Texas and elsewhere
Points of LightContinuing its well established trend of expanding civil liability while disregarding U.S. Supreme Court precedent, the California Supreme Court did it again last week with its plaintiff-favoring decision in McGill v. Citibank, N.A.
Judicial HellholesThe U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit yesterday vacated certification and directed the trial court to dismiss with prejudice the latest “empty suit” class action wherein class members suffered no real injury and wasted precious court resources merely to register their dissatisfaction with a product
Points of LightIn attacking ATRA’s annually well-documented “Judicial Hellholes” report, which recently ranked St. Louis as the nation’s least fair civil court jurisdiction and criticized what we believe are scientifically groundless verdicts against makers of talcum powder, local personal injury lawyer Roger Denton claimed to have no involvement in litigation against one of those makers. But documents ATRA provided to the Post-Dispatch caught him in a lie
Judicial HellholesThe American Tort Reform Foundation issued its 2016-2017 Judicial Hellholes® report today, naming courts in Missouri, California, New York, Florida, New Jersey, Illinois, Louisiana, Virginia and Texas among the nation’s “most unfair” in their handling of civil litigation
UncategorizedDespite President-elect Donald Trump’s history of litigiousness, the American Tort Reform Association today declared the “lawsuit industry” to be “the biggest loser in last night’s historic election”
Points of LightSt. Louis juries have twice levied hefty multi-million dollar damage awards against Johnson & Johnson since February on behalf of out of state ovarian cancer victims. Questions remain as to whether the scientific evidence supported such large verdicts. Johnson & Johnson is appealing both verdicts.
Judicial HellholesWASHINGTON, 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.
UncategorizedJudicial Hellholes reporters have long kept an eye on St. Louis, Missouri, one of the most plaintiff-friendly jurisdictions in the nation. So in the rare instance that a judge there is willing to take even a small stand against the reflexive expansion of civil liability, it’s worthy of kudos
Points of LightATRA considers a recent ABA Journal story about constitutional challenges to statutory liability limits to be “largely fair,” but believes “it’s slightly weighted toward the view of plaintiffs’ lawyers and could lead a general reader to incorrect assumptions
UncategorizedThe Kansas Supreme Court today upheld a $250,000 limit on noneconomic damages that has been in place since 1988
Points of LightA recent $1.25 million plaintiffs verdict in a railway crossing accident case tried in Madison County, Illinois has thankfully been reversed and remanded, but the judge’s conduct of the original trial speaks volumes about why the jurisdiction is a perennial Judicial Hellhole, and why plaintiffs from across the country hurry to board the “Madison County Express”
Judicial HellholesState and local economies continue to struggle with slow growth and high unemployment and, not coincidentally, some of those struggling
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