Not so much.
We hear a lot about how there are too many injury lawsuits… how people are quick to sue… how frivolous lawsuits will bankrupt business or entire industries or the entire economy. Turns out it’s a phony crisis made up by corporations to avoid accountability.
The data – the evidence – proves exactly the opposite. The Center for Justice and Democracy writing at Pop Tort noted a new study by the National Center for State Courts on the prevalence (or lack thereof) of tort lawsuits.
A tort lawsuit is a claim against a wrongdoer (tortfeasor) for the infliction of personal injury or wrongful death. We have been led to believe that the courts are flooded with such suits. They’re not.
According to this study, tort cases are a minority of lawsuits filed across the country. Not just a minority, but a small minority. And not just a small minority, but in some states, an infinitesimal minority. In 19 states where reliable data could be collected and analyzed, tort cases ranged from about 7% at the highest end to less than 1%.
The rest of the cases filed? Criminal cases, domestic (divorce and custody) cases, business lawsuits, etc.
Remember the evidence when you hear some large business group trying to infringe on your constitutional right to a jury trial in order to protect their corporate profits.
© Copyright 2014 Brett A. Emison
Follow @BrettEmison on Twitter.
Brett Emison is currently a partner at Langdon & Emison, a firm dedicated to helping injured victims across the country from their primary office near Kansas City. Mainly focusing on catastrophic injury and death cases as well as complex mass tort and dangerous drug cases, Mr. Emison often deals with automotive defects, automobile crashes, railroad crossing accidents (train accidents), trucking accidents, dangerous and defective drugs, defective medical devices.
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