Amount Of Litigation And Lots Of New Laws Cited As Factors, And Certain Types Of Litigation Identified As Behind The Rating.
Dante's 6th Circle of Hell. Wikimedia Commons. Gustave Dore.
Confirming its relative rankings in the last few years, California clocked in as #2 on the American Tort Reform Foundation’s list of 2017 “Judicial Hellholes.”
Florida came in at #1, California at #2, City of St. Louis, MO Circuit Court at #3, New York City’s Asbestos Litigation Court at #4, Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas (especially its Complex Litigation Center) at #5, New Jersey at #6, Madison and Cook Counties, Ill. at #7, and Louisiana at #8.
The 2017 Report especially cited these areas as a basis for the ranking: PAGA (intended to protected employees); Proposition 65 (intended to protect public health); false advertising (food labels) (intended to protect consumers), noting that the N.D. California federal court is sometimes dubbed the “Food Court;” innovator product liability theory; CEQA; public nuisance laws; asbestos/talc; some abusive personal injury suits in the aftermath of California fires; and ADA.
COMMENT: ATRA looks askance at legislation and regulations that add to the cost of doing business, e.g., laws and regulations designed to protect employees, consumers, and the environment. Such protections are enforced through private lawsuits, because states lack the resources to fully enforce protections of health, welfare, safety, and the environment. Hence, ATRA and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, on the one hand, and trial attorneys on the other, have been historical adversaries.
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