The US Chamber of Commerce's Institute for Legal Reform is out with its annual state-by-state rankings of "state liability systems." I'm not sure this is the right name for it -- it's more a combination of rankings of systems, the players (i.e., judges and juries) and outcomes. Nonetheless, it will come as no surprise that California doesn't fair well in the eyes of in-house counsel. Overall, California ranked sixth worst (or 45th best, depending on your level of optimism), ahead of only Illinois, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and West Virginia.
More after the jump.
Here are some elements of the study that I found interesting / surprising:
- The respondents were asked which five cities or counties had the least fair and reasonable litigation environments. Los Angeles came in first, at 13% -- ahead of Madison County, Illinois, Orleans Parish and Beaumont Texas (San Francisco came in seventh);
- California was ranked fifth worst for overall treatment of class action suits and mass consolidation suits -- California, which dramatically tightened its standing requirements for the Unfair Competition Law in 2004, which follows the federal rules on class certification, and which has never recognized class action treatment of personal injury cases;
- California was ranked fifth worse for discovery, despite the fact that this state has virtually no e-discovery obligations;
- California was ranked only 30th worst on "scientific and technical evidence," despite the fact that there is absolutely no Daubert protection in our state courts, and the trial judges almost never perform a gate-keeper function.
Perhaps most significant were the reasons the respondents cited in support of their opinions about Los Angeles and other "unfair and unreasonable" venues. 76% mentioned "corrupt/unfair system." But only 11% cited "personal experience." In other words, only a small percentage of the senior corporate counsel specifically stated that they had bad experiences in places such as Los Angeles that they described as unfair and unreasonable.
As the authors of the study noted in their introduction, "one important point to note is that these rankings and results are based on the perceptions of these senior corporate attorneys." While it is true that the law in California tends to be pro-consumer, sometimes pro-tort plaintiff and occasionally irrational (see: Proposition 65, lengthier discussion coming soon), we see verdicts in this state in favor of corporations and against individuals every week. This state is not a "judicial hell-hole." But it is avery unforgiving place when the parties and their attorneys don't understand the ground rules.
Comments