W.Va. Named #1 “Legal Hellhole”—Again

A new list of judicial “hellholes” once again singles out the state of West Virginia as the worst area in the nation for business, citing the state for “its near perfect storm of anti-business rulings, massive lawsuits and cozy relationships between the personal injury bar, the state attorney general and some in the judiciary.”

The list is released annually by the American Tort Reform Foundation, funded in part by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Besides what it calls “perennial” West Virginia, the list of the nation's "most unfair civil court jurisdictions” includes South Florida and Cook County, Ill.

Newcomers to the list are Clark County, Nev.; Atlantic County, N.J.; and Los Angeles County, Calif. Back on the list are Alabama's Macon and Montgomery counties, which officials say are returning to the unwanted spotlight “after respective absences.”

The Property Casualty Insurers Association of America said the list “sheds a spotlight on some of the worst judicial environments in the country and highlights the importance of fighting for a balanced civil justice system in 2009.”

David Golden, director of commercial lines for PCI, noted, “The cost of an unfair judicial system in today’s economy can be measured in lost jobs, lower tax revenues and higher costs for consumers.”

He added, “The last thing states need right now is an unfair judicial system that makes it even harder to generate new jobs, attract new companies to the state, keep doctors and make insurance affordable, as consumers ultimately foot the bill for runaway litigation.”

West Virginia tops the list, according to ATRF officials, because the state's highest court has a “history of plaintiff-biased decisions, paying damages to those who are not injured, allowing mass trials, permitting lawsuits outside the workers' compensation system, rejecting long-established legal principles, and welcoming plaintiffs' lawyers from other states to take advantage of its generous rulings.”

To make matters worse, the report said, “West Virginia is one of only two states that do not guarantee a right to appeal a civil verdict, even if a multimillion-dollar award is clearly excessive under the law or the trial court violated procedural fairness by allowing a jury to decide punitive damages before it found a defendant legally responsible for a claim.”

Moreover, the report said, “There also may be no state with a closer alliance between the state attorney general and politically connected personal injury lawyers—an alliance that “has wreaked havoc at the expense of civil justice,” the report concluded.

South Florida is next because it “maintains its reputation for legally excessive awards and plaintiff-biased rulings that make it a launching pad for class actions, dubious claims and novel legal theories creating new types of lawsuits,” the report said.

It noted that this year South Florida was home to a record-breaking award in an asbestos case. “And though medical malpractice claims may be coming down off their peak, the area is still home to some of the largest such awards,” it added.

Cook County, or Chicago, is on the list because it has a reputation for “hostility toward corporate defendants and has long been known as a receptive host for lawsuits.”

Cook County still hosts significantly more than its proportional share of lawsuits in the state, as its courts permit "forum shopping" whereby lawyers from other parts of the state or country can bring lawsuits with little or no connection to Cook County, the report added.

Beyond the Judicial Hellholes, the report also calls attention to several additional jurisdictions that bear watching for suspicious or negative developments in litigation, histories of abuse, or laudable efforts to improve themselves.

These include the Rio Grande Valley and Gulf Coast of Texas; Madison County, Ill.; Baltimore, Md.; and the city of St. Louis and St. Louis & Jackson counties, Mo.