Chamber Releases State Liability Systems Ranking Study
The Institute for Legal Reform of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has released its 2010 State Liability Systems Ranking Study. The study was conducted for the U.S. Chamber to explore how reasonable and balanced the states’ tort liability systems are perceived to be by U.S. business. Participants in the survey were comprised of a sample of 1,500 in-house general counsel, senior litigators or attorneys, and other senior executives who indicated they are knowledgeable about litigation matters at companies with at least $100 million in annual revenues.
The 2010 ranking builds on seven previous surveys in which all 50 states were ranked by those familiar with the litigation environment in that state. The State Liability Systems Ranking Study basically aims to quantify how corporate attorneys view the state systems. Overall, more than two in five (44%) senior attorneys view the fairness and reasonableness of state court liability systems in America as excellent or pretty good, up slightly from the last survey in 2008 (41%). A majority
(56%) view the systems as only fair or poor. Two-thirds (67%) report that the litigation environment in a state is likely to impact important business decisions at their companies, for instance, where to locate or do business, an increase from 63% in 2008 and 57% in 2007.
Respondents were asked to give jurisdictions a grade (A, B, C, D or F) in each of the following areas:
- Having and enforcing meaningful venue requirements;
- Overall treatment of tort and contract litigation;
- Treatment of class action suits and mass consolidation suits;
- Damages;
- Timeliness of summary judgment or dismissal;
- Discovery;
- Scientific and technical evidence;
- Judges’ impartiality;
- Judges’ competence; and
- Juries’ fairness.
These elements were then combined to create an overall ranking.
The worst jurisdiction in the survey was Chicago/Cook County, Illinois, followed by Los Angeles,
California, the state of California in general, the state of Texas in general, and Madison County, Illinois. Your humble logger's home turf of Philadelphia was ranked 13th worst.
The best? Survey says:
1. Delaware
2. North Dakota
3. Utah
4. Nebraska
5. Iowa
