Chamber of Commerce spouts more tort system distortions

A new ad from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform contends that “lawsuit abuse” imposes a $350 annual “tort tax” on the “average family”. As is typical of the corporate/insurance-industry sponsored “tort reform” propaganda campaign, this latest claim is bogus. In this case, the Chamber makes deceptive use of an analysis by Tillinghast, an insurance and financial services consulting firm. Tillinghast calculated the annual cost of tort claims at $260.0 billion, which represents insurance company expenditures on claims investigation and defense, administrative expenses for case handling, and payouts to third parties.

The Chamber’s $3250 per family figure falsely assumes that all tort litigation is “frivolous”. It also ignores the cost of injuries and other harm caused by defective products, professional negligence, and other torts. A statement by Larry Akey, a Chamber spokesperson, reflects the cavalier attitude toward facts that typifies “tort reform” propaganda. When the Wall Street Journal’s “Numbers Guy” pointed out that the average U.S. family size, according to the Census Bureau, is only 2.6 people, and not 4 as the Chamber’s figure assumes, Akey responded,

We say the typical American family is Mom, Dad, brother and sis. [...] We can split hairs about what the correct number might be. My response is, how much should the American public pay for a broken lawsuit system?

In other words, we can base our claims on valid data, or we can just make shit up.

Also this week, the Chamber released a study purporting to rank “the states doing the best and worst job of ‘creating a fair and reasonable litigation environment’”. In response, the American Association for Justice has issued its own ranking of “The 10 Worst States To Get Sick Or Injured In“. Both the survey and the ad represent what the AAJ’s Jon Haber described as “Efforts by front groups like the national Chamber to pass laws that allow corporate CEOs to evade accountability for wrongdoing and negligence have eliminated many Americans’ access to justice”.