Gov. Mary Fallin of Oklahoma has signed three major pieces of tort reform legislation to law, discouraging abusive and frivolous lawsuits and improving the state’s business climate. From her April 5 statement:

For too long, inflated legal fees have been an unnecessary cost-driver in the private sector and a burden on the medical community. As a result, we’ve seen businesses and doctors choose to locate in other states, depriving our citizens of good jobs, reducing access to medical care and driving up the costs for medical treatment.

I’m thrilled to be able to sign into law measures which will directly address skyrocketing legal fees, protect our doctors, and help to bring more jobs and businesses into Oklahoma while still protecting the rights of plaintiffs and those who have suffered injuries. This is a great day for anyone who is committed to building a more prosperous state and a stronger economy.

The three bills she signed: (continue reading…)

Glenn Lammi of the Washington Legal Foundation does a roundup post at WLF’s Legal Pulse blog on the business cases the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear yesterday, “Supreme Court Cert Grants: FOIA, False Claims, Civil Procedure and the Return of Anna Nicole Smith“:

Emerging from its summer recess and Monday’s “Long Conference,” the U.S. Supreme Court granted review to 14 cases this morning.  Eight of them involve business litigants or implicate issues that affect our free enterprise system.  The Court accepted cases featuring one law on which it has ruled very frequently of late — the False Claims Act – and another law — the Freedom of Information Act — on which it rarely comments.  One case explores a first-year law school civil procedure issue, while another gets deeply into the weeds of bankruptcy jurisprudence, thanks to a three-decade estate battle involving the late Anna Nicole Smith.

David Freddoso of The Washington Examiner tracks the activities of the litigation lobby and finds them still grasping, “Trial lawyers will still have their best friend after November.” Freddoso is referring to President Obama, whom he warns might allow the federal government to again farm out its lawsuits to private law firms.

President George W. Bush signed Executive Order 13433, which bars federal agencies from hiring trial lawyers to pursue lucrative contingency cases on behalf of the government.

Such hired-gun lawyers have become overnight millionaires working for various state attorneys general — most notably in the 1998 tobacco settlement. As of Nov. 3, there will be nothing to stop Obama from rescinding the executive order and effectively handing new legal patronage to his donors.

The Cato Institute’s Daniel Griswold and Sallie James write on H.R. 4678, the Foreign Manufacturers Liability Act, warning “‘Consumer Safety’ Bill Could Boomerang against U.S. Manufacturers“: (continue reading…)

Tulsa World, “Legislature OKs lawsuit reforms.”

Daily Oklahoman, “Tort reform bill goes to Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry.” The governor is inclined to sign HB 1603, a spokesman says; in 2007 he vetoed reform legislation.

The Daily Oklahoman summarizes the key provisions:

• A $400,000 cap on noneconomic damages for all negligence cases. The cap may be lifted if a judge or jury determines there is permanent physical injury, catastrophic injury, gross negligence or recklessness. A previous version of the tort reform bill called for a $300,000 cap. The caps would not be in place until May 2011.
• Cases alleging negligence by a physician must be proven by “clear and convincing evidence.”
• In cases where the settlement is coupons, the attorney shall also receive the fee in coupons.
• Several changes to how class-action lawsuits are handled, including a limit on allowing nonresidents to be included in a class-action suit in Oklahoma.
• An expert would have to certify that a professional negligence case had merit before it could proceed.
• Information presented during a physician peer review session would remain confidential and could not be used in a lawsuit.

The State Chamber has also posted the conference report summarizing the legislation here, and the bill’s text here.

Earlier posts here.

The San Francisco-based Pacific Research Institute has released a new report, “Tort Law Tally,” identifying which state tort reforms are most effective in reducing tort losses and tort insurance premiums.

Sally Pipes, President and CEO of PRI, discusses the report in the Washington Examiner today in an op-ed, “A swift re-tort: How to fight lawsuit abuse.” Excerpt:

From 1996 through 2005, roughly 20 million tort lawsuits were filed in U.S. state courts. During that time, the combined payouts for losses and insurance premiums associated with state tort cases jumped a full 60 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars.

 

Unfortunately, less than 15 cents of every tort-cost dollar goes to compensate the injured victims, so those huge payouts wind up lining the pockets of the middlemen—the personal-injury lawyers.

 

Tort reform can stop this cycle of spiraling tort costs, which get passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices for goods and services. Tort Law Tally, a new study from the Pacific Research Institute, identified 18 measures that, taken together, can slash tort payouts by almost 50 percent and cut consumers’ annual insurance premiums by 16 percent.

The study reports that when tort reforms are ordered according to each reform’s ability to reduce aggregate tort losses, the top eight reforms are:

1. attorney-retention sunshine (12-percent reduction)
2. Daubert rule (10 percent)
3. frivolous lawsuits (7 percent)
4. jury service (6 percent)
5. appeal-bond caps (4 percent)
6. negligence standard (3 percent)
7. non-economic-damage caps (2 percent)
8. medical-malpractice damage caps (1 percent)

 Download the study here as a .pdf file.