The Truth About Torts

The Campaign for 'Tort Reform':  Undercutting Vital Protections

In recent years, efforts to rein in excesses of corporations have run head-long into an assault on individuals' right to bring suit against manufacturers whose products or activities cause them harm.  This push for what its backers call “tort reform,” has been driven by a seemingly endless stream of thinly fact-checked anecdotes about frivolous lawsuits and by a brazen effort to blame the rising costs of health care on malpractice lawsuits.
 

CPR’s Member Scholars have conducted extensive research on the topic, and in a series of reports on various aspects of the subject, have debunked most of industry’s claims about the need for tort reform. Indeed, the push for tort reform is at its core an effort to protect industry from its own excesses. By limiting the dollar damages citizens can seek in court, industry hopes to make unsafe and polluting practices less financially risky. And by denying citizens access to the courts, industry hopes to make such practices all but free of risk.

 

Nevertheless, the myth of the "Lawsuit Crisis" has taken root, the result of years of pounding by corporate interests intent on enacting "tort reform" that protects them from the harm their products and practices cause. CPR Member Scholars’ work in this area includes three installments in the Truth About Torts series: