The Tort Crisis is Overblown and Bears Little Resemblance to Actual Research
In the May 17, 2005 issue of the Insurance Journal, the authors report that
"there is no credible evidence to link the tort system to the economic ills its critics claim or to the benefits they argue would be produced by altering it."In support of this statement, IJ cites a new study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), called "The Frivolous Case for Tort Law Change." According to the EPI report, the cost estimates supporting the claims used by proponents of tort reform are "wildly overstated", and "completely inconsistent with the claim that higher legal costs have hurt the economy."
Major supporters of tort reform, including President Bush, frequently rely upon reports prepared by Tillinghast-Towers Perrin, a consulting firm for the insurance industry, to argue in favor of limiting lawsuits. One author of the EPI report, Lawrence Chimerine refutes the validity of the Tillinghast reports:
"The insurance consultants have spun a few high-profile but unrepresentative incidents into a horror story that is almost entirely unsupported by the facts. It is cobbled together out of gross exaggerations, shreds of fact plucked out of context and 'secret' data that cannot be examined by anyone but them. The result is a mishmash that bears little resemblance to actual research."
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