JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – News that St. Louis had been ranked the “number on judicial hellhole” in the nation put tort reform at the forefront of the legislature’s priorities for the 2017 legislative session, and on Tuesday, the American Tort Reform Association (ATRA) released their latest report.
The good news is that St. Louis is no longer listed as number one. That honor goes to Florida, followed by California. However, the Gateway to the West is still among the top five, seated squarely in the third spot. Prior to ranking number one, the city had been ranked as number four in the 2015-2016 report.
“As Bloomberg has reported, St. Louis civil courts are known for “fast trials, favorable rulings, and big awards.” But by virtue of a change in gubernatorial leadership, a good start by state lawmakers on an agenda of much-needed statutory reforms and a powerful U.S. Supreme Court decision curbing forum shopping in 2017, the City of St. Louis Circuit Court can no longer be fairly ranked as the nation’s worst Judicial Hellhole, as it was a year ago,” the report states.
The ATRA attributes the lowered ranking to the election of a “new reform-minded” governor in Republican Governor Eric Greitens, noting that he cited the report in his first State of the State address.
“Lawmakers have followed his lead, and a timely decision from the highest court in the land, limiting state courts’ jurisdiction over out-of-state defendants, should boost their efforts to curb litigation tourism and otherwise reduce lawsuit abuse in the “Show Me Your Lawsuits State.”
They point to the passage of several reform bills during the 2017 legislative session, particularly the Daubert standard for expert witnesses and another bill allowing defendants to introduce evidence of both the actual costs of plaintiffs’ medical care and payments already made by defendants or their insurers.
However, the credibility or validity of their findings is, as in years past, questioned.
“Don’t be duped by the corporate front group, ATRA. Year after year this project has been ridiculed, debunked, and exposed as nothing more than propaganda paid for by multinational corporations that want to evade accountability for harming and killing Americans,” American Association for Justice (AAJ) President Mary Alice McLarty said in a statement.
The New York Times reported in 2007 that the annual hellhole report was not a valid analysis, stating that “the question is whether the report’s arguments make sense, are supported by evidence and are applied evenhandedly. Here the report falls short . . . It has no apparent methodology.”
In response, the ATRA admitted that “we have never claimed to be an empirical study.” (New York Times, December 24, 2007)
Opponents of the ATRA also point to the report, saying that it is totally funded by corporate defendants, with names like Koch Industries and Johnson & Johnson among the list of members. They argue that it’s simply corporate defendants who don’t like losing cases, saying it’s just an attempt to decrease judgments against them in areas like St. Louis.
You can read the full 2017-2018 ATRA Judicial Hellhole report below:
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Benjamin Peters was a reporter for The Missouri Times and Missouri Times Magazine and also produced the #MoLeg Podcast. He joined The Missouri Times in 2016 after working as a sports editor and TV news producer in mid-Missouri. Benjamin is a graduate of Missouri State University in Springfield.
