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Trial
Lawyers Inc. Update No 5, August 2008
JUDGING
OHIO:
Legal Reforms are Steering Ohio’s Struggling Economy
in the Right Direction
Today’s economic picture is not pretty in Ohio, where
the average annual income of a family of four is $12,000 below
the national average[1] and its unemployment
rate was 6.3 percent in May 2008, up from 5.6 percent a year
ago and well above the 5.5 percent national average.[2]
From 2000 to 2005, Ohio’s economy generated some 300,000
fewer jobs than it would have done if it had grown as fast
as the United States as a whole.[3] And
by preserving a combined state and local tax burden that is
fifth-highest in the country,[4] the
state’s politicians are not making economic recovery
any easier.
There is a bright spot for Ohioans, however, and it is the
state’s legal climate. With a court system now making
reasonably predictable rulings and a legislature that was
able to pass broad tort reforms in 2002, 2003, and 2004, Ohio’s
litigation climate has become less hostile to economic development
than it had been for years. Moreover, the state’s asbestos-litigation
docket is clearing, and doctors’ malpractice-insurance
bills are falling. Absent such positive developments, the
state’s prospects would be much worse than they are.
Less than a decade ago, Ohio’s legal system was in the
grip of personal-injury attorneys, whom the Manhattan Institute
calls Trial Lawyers, Inc. Jury verdicts were skyrocketing,
and the state supreme court was repeatedly turning back the
legislature’s efforts to rein in the state’s out-of-control
tort system. Today, however, Ohio’s once-threatening
legal environment is looking friendlier and fairer, thanks
in no small part to the electorate’s decision to install
new judges who are less willing to substitute their policy
preferences for the legislature’s political will. Still,
the newly restrained judiciary could easily revert to its
former ways and make the state a haven for lawsuit abuse once
more, should the plaintiffs’ bar succeed in defeating
two supreme court justices up for reelection this fall.
THE OHIO COURT’S ACTIVISM
Today, Ohio’s judicial elections are hotly contested,
but they were not always so. They became that way after 1999,
when the state supreme court made headlines by thoroughly
rejecting the legislature’s broad 1996 tort-reform law.
In an extraordinary maneuver, the court—by a four-to-three
majority—accepted “original jurisdiction” and
took up a direct frontal challenge to the new legislation
from the Ohio Academy of Trial Lawyers without waiting for
any lower court to apply it.[5] The court
ruled that the reform measure violated the separation of powers—in
other words, that the legislature could not intrude substantially
upon the legal system, which was, in the court’s opinion,
the purview of the judges.
In addition, the court said that the legislation violated
the state constitution’s “one-subject rule,”
which mandates that “[n]o bill shall contain more than
one subject, which shall be clearly expressed in its title.”[6]
Essentially, the court’s opinion argued that even though
the sole subject of the new law was tort reform, it was too
comprehensive to be in compliance with the requirement. The
dissent forcefully noted that under the one-subject rule,
there was a “strong presumption of constitutionality”
and that historically, the court had invoked the rule only
when there was “a gross and fraudulent violation”[7]—that
is, “when there is an absence of common purpose or relationship
between specific topics in an act and when there are no discernible
practical, rational or legitimate reasons for combining the
provisions in one act.”[8] Ignoring
this historical restraint in order to invoke the constitutional
provision, the supreme court made the bold claim that the
law was unsalvageable, even in part, and threw it out in its
entirety.
OHIO’S PRINCE OF TORTS
Ohio plaintiffs’ lawyer Stanley Chesley has been
dubbed the “prince of torts.”[11]
He claims to have won over $7 billion for his clients,
and the contingency fees from those winnings support
a lifestyle that would make even Robin Leach blush:
Chesley lives in a 27,000-square-foot château
on a 300-acre estate outside Cincinnati, and he has
more than twenty cars, including Rolls-Royces, Bentleys,
and Ferraris. In order to extend Trial Lawyers, Inc.’s
political influence, Chesley has raised millions of
dollars for the Democratic Party, much of it at three
fund-raisers that Chesley hosted at his home for President
Bill Clinton.[12]
 Chesley
rose to prominence in 1977 in the aftermath of a fire
that burned down the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Kentucky
and killed 165 people inside. The club was chiefly at
fault for failing to comply with lifesaving provisions
of the local fire code, but because it had only $1 million
in insurance, far too little to compensate the estates
of so many people, Chesley sued the entire aluminum
electrical wire industry, ultimately winning $49 million
in verdicts and settlements.[13]
Chesley parlayed this victory into numerous additional
disaster suits, including one of many resulting from
the downing by terrorists of Pan Am Flight 103 over
Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.[14]
Although the legal theory holding wire manufacturers
and Pan Am heavily responsible for those disasters is
tenuous, at least there is some causal link between
the wires and the airline’s conduct and the tragedies
themselves. Many of Chesley’s lawsuits, however,
rest on far flimsier claims of causality, relying instead
on what has come to be known as “junk science,”
including claims against the morning sickness drug Bendectin,
which is no longer available in America but remains
on the market in the rest of the world.[15]
Chesley was also a leader of the group of lawyers who
left Dow Corning bankrupt after winning $5 billion through
lawsuits making the now-discredited claim that breast
implants caused connective-tissue disease.[16]
More recently, Chesley was involved in litigation over
another medical product, the recalled diet drug Fen-Phen;
that litigation has given rise to a criminal prosecution.
Lawyers suing on behalf of 440 plaintiffs in Kentucky
chose Chesley to lead negotiations that culminated in
a settlement of $200 million.[17]
Federal prosecutors charged the three original attorneys
in that case with taking some $65 million in excess
of the fees they had agreed were their share. Because
Chesley’s fee was calculated as a percentage of
the total fees paid, Chesley stood to benefit from any
improper increase in their total amount. Chesley testified
in court that he had no knowledge of the alleged wrongdoing,
and he has not been charged with any crime.[18]
In July, a jury acquitted one of the three defendants
but deadlocked over the other two, who remain in jail.[19]
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Legal observers were not kind to the court’s aggressive
action. The Harvard Law Review opined that “the court
[had] misappropriated both the separation of powers doctrine
and the state constitution’s ‘one-subject rule’
”; indeed, that the decision “may have undermined
the Ohio Supreme Court’s valued position as defender
of the state’s constitution.”[9]
Although the state’s activist court had overturned legislatively
enacted tort-reform laws before,[10]
the procedural boldness of the 1999 decision—in considering
the law under an exceptional writ of mandamus, absent an actual
case or controversy—as well as its sweep sent shock waves
through the legal community.
BUSINESS FIGHTS BACK
Supreme Court Justice Alice Robie Resnick, who had authored
the court’s outrageous 1999 decision, faced reelection
in 2000, along with Justice Deborah L. Cook, who had dissented.
The contests were record-setting affairs, as business groups
poured money into efforts to defeat Resnick and reelect Cook,
while trial lawyers devoted funds to producing the opposite
outcome. All told, the campaigns featured 11,907 television
advertisements—more than the number of advertisements
for supreme court races in all other states combined.[20]
The candidates themselves raised a combined $3,273,506, and
outside groups spent as much as $8 million.[21]
Total television advertising expenses were $5,010,292.[22]
Ultimately, both Resnick and Cook were reelected, perhaps
a testament to the power of incumbency. In 2002, supreme court
electoral spending went even higher. Justice Andrew Douglas—one
of two Republicans on the court to join in Resnick’s
anti-tort-reform opinion—announced his retirement, and
Lieutenant Governor Maureen O’Connor declared for the
open seat and won it, after a campaign in which the candidates
raised $6.2 million and 13,105 television ads aired—again,
more than half the total nationwide.[23]
Three years after the supreme court’s bold assault on
the legislature, there was a new majority on the court that
supported the rule of law.
Another record-setting state supreme court campaign was waged
in 2004, when Court of Appeals Judge Judith Ann Lanzinger,
a strict constructionist, was elected to the seat vacated
by Francis Sweeney, a trial-lawyer-friendly activist justice.
In the 2004 supreme court races, the candidates raised over
$6.3 million, and the candidates, parties, and outside groups
spent over $7.5 million on 14,139 advertisements.[24]
In 2006, Justice Resnick’s seat was again contested,
but this time it was open, because of Resnick’s decision
not to run for reelection after having been caught driving
drunk. At least as damaging as the arrest itself was what
she was recorded telling the arresting officers: “My
God, you know I decide all these cases in your favor. And
my golly, look what you’re doing to me.”[25] Although
Democratic candidates were scoring other victories in the
state, Resnick’s arrest tilted the election in favor
of Republican Court of Appeals Judge Robert R. Cupp, another
strict constructionist. Expenditures in the 2006 supreme court
elections were relatively modest: “only” 5,763 advertisements,
costing just over $2 million, were aired.[26]
A MAJOR STEP FORWARD
Although supreme court elections had become more competitive,
the state legislature still saw the need to establish clear
legal rules and scale back Ohio’s system of jackpot justice.
One reason was that between 1996 and 2001, the average jury
verdict had more than doubled in Cuyahoga County, to $112,551;
and had risen more than fivefold in Franklin County, to $221,330
(see graph).[27] One result was that
doctors in the state were getting squeezed by medical-malpractice-insurance
rates, which rose by 30 percent in both 2002 and 2003 and
by 20 percent in 2004.[28]
So in 2002, in order to preserve a defendant’s effective
right of appeal, the legislature limited to $50 million the
size of the bond that a defendant must first post.[29]
Later that year, the legislature, concerned about the impact
of noneconomic damages (such as pain and suffering) on medical-malpractice
liability-insurance rates, passed a bill that capped them
at $350,000 to $1 million, depending on the type of injury.[30]
This legislation, enacted the following year, also required
medical injury lawsuits to be filed within one year of an
injury’s occurrence, or within four years of the underlying
cause of the injury.[31]
THE RANDY GENERAL DANN
On May 14, 2008, Ohio’s attorney general of only
sixteen months, Democrat Marc Dann, resigned in scandal.[32]
By the time he left office, forty-two of forty-five
House Democrats had called for his impeachment, and
Democratic governor Ted Strickland and all the state’s
major newspapers—including the Columbus Dispatch,
the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and the Cincinnati Enquirer—had
called for his resignation.[33]
 In
March, two female employees in the attorney general’s
office made sexual-harassment complaints against Anthony
Gutierrez, Dann’s director of general services.
Gutierrez was suspended and ultimately fired, as was
Dann’s director of communications, Leo Jennings.[34]
In May, Dann admitted to having had an extramarital
affair with his scheduler. Those trysts occurred in
a condominium apartment that he sometimes shared with
Gutierrez and Jennings and used for drinking parties
with female staffers. The rent was paid with campaign
funds.[35]
As salacious as the details surrounding Dann’s
departure were, Dann arguably did Ohioans more harm
in his capacity as the state’s prosecutor in chief.
Shortly after taking office, Dann advised Governor
Strickland that it would be constitutional to veto a
tort-reform bill that the legislature had passed during
the governorship of his predecessor, Bob Taft.[36]
The Ohio Supreme Court later determined Strickland’s
veto to be unconstitutional.[37]
Later, following the lead of the most activist attorneys
general in the nation, Dann pursued spurious legal theories
on behalf of the state. For example, in April 2007,
at the prodding of the left-wing activist group ACORN
(Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now),
Dann’s office filed a “public nuisance”
lawsuit against paint manufacturers for harms attributed
to lead paint—which had not been sold since 1978.[38]
One of the chief defendants in the suit, the paint company
Sherwin-Williams, is one of Cuyahoga County’s ten
largest employers.[39] The tendentious
legal theory underlying the lead-paint nuisance action
has since been rejected by the supreme courts of Missouri,
New Jersey, and Rhode Island.[40]
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In 2004, the legislature passed another set of reforms, which
was signed in January 2005 and went into effect in April of
that year. The new legislation expanded the limitations on
non-economic damage awards to tort claims other than medical
malpractice actions; added limitations on the size of punitive
damages; made it more difficult to file suits claiming that
some product caused a plaintiff’s obesity; and urged
the supreme court to adopt a Legal Consumer’s Bill of
Rights setting out attorneys’ and clients’ rights
and responsibilities.[41] The legislation
also mandated that juries be presented evidence as to whether
the plaintiff in a case involving a vehicular accident was
wearing a seat belt and was entitled to insurance payments
on top of the damages being sought.[42]
Also, in 2004 the legislature passed another bill making
it harder for individuals to avoid jury duty, to ensure that
jury pools were genuinely reflective of the general population.
Two more bills required the medical monitoring of asbestos
claimants and silica claimants, respectively.[43]
A legal commentator called the asbestos law “comprehensive
and forward-thinking” and noted that it influenced similar
legislation subsequently adopted in Texas, Florida, and Georgia.[44]
The reform in effect “eliminated the claims of those
who are not sick and allows them to file suit only after they
show symptoms of an asbestos-related illness.”[45]
The new laws that have been challenged to date have been
upheld by the reconstituted supreme court. On December 27,
2007, in a landmark ruling, the court determined (by a vote
of five to two) that the noneconomic and punitive-damages
provisions of the reform legislation were not unconstitutional.[46]
Then, in February 2008, the court ruled, six to one, that
the comprehensive 2004 legislation did not violate the one-subject
rule.[47]
DOCUMENTING DOUBLE-DIPPING
 In
January 2007, Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas
Judge Harry Hanna did something unusual: he barred the
Brayton Purcell law firm from practicing in his courtroom.[48]
The California-based firm, which specializes in asbestos
litigation, had been before the judge representing the
estate of Harry Kananian, a World War II veteran who
had died in 2000 from mesothelioma, a deadly form of
lung cancer linked to asbestos exposure.[49]
The firm claimed that Kananian’s cancer had been
caused by filters containing asbestos that the defendant,
the Lorillard tobacco company, had put on its cigarettes
for a short period in the 1950s.[50]
The problem that Brayton Purcell posed for Judge Hanna
was that it and other firms had filed other claims on
behalf of Kananian with various asbestos trusts,[51]
the entities set up to pay out claims against the 80
companies forced into bankruptcy by asbestos litigation.
These other claims gave different accounts of where
Kananian was exposed to asbestos: that exposure occurred
on navy ships, in navy shipyards, or in a factory where
he worked as a teenager.[52] Under
these alternative theories, Kananian’s lawyers
had already collected $700,000.[53]
The double-dipping scandal before Judge Hanna highlighted
the lack of transparency in the ongoing asbestos litigation
as well as the asbestos trusts, which have some $17
billion in assets. The trusts are managed by committees
led by large asbestos plaintiffs’ firms, such as
Texas’s Baron & Budd and New York’s Weitz
& Luxenberg;[54] little wonder
that the trusts’ own rules prohibit disclosure
of prior asbestos claims.
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an
advocacy group for state legislatures, has drafted a
model bill requiring full and timely disclosure of all
actual and potential asbestos claims.[55]
The Ohio legislature would be well advised to adopt
the Asbestos Claims Transparency Act, or comparable
legislation, if it wants to address the problem made
clear in Judge Hanna’s courtroom.
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LEGAL REFORMS GET RESULTS
After Ohio’s medical-malpractice-liability reform went
into effect in April 2003, previously skyrocketing insurance
rates began to stabilize. Medical-malpractice insurance rates
in Ohio rose only 6.7 percent in 2005; in 2006, average medical-malpractice
rates actually fell by 1.7 percent, and the largest insurer
in the state, American Physicians Assurance Corporation, cut
its rates by 3.6 percent.[56] In 2006,
the number of medical-malpractice claims fell to 4,006, from
5,051 in 2005.[57] Reductions of this
size not only hold down health-cost increases but also help
improve access to medical care by attracting and retaining
physicians, especially those in high-risk specialties.
In nonmedical cases, the new reforms have also started to
produce significant results. Ohio had long been one of the
nation’s centers of asbestos litigation, but the number
of asbestos-related cases in the state has been falling faster
than it has been nationally.[58] The
state’s supreme court has yet to affirm the constitutionality
of the asbestos-litigation reform statutes; assuming that
it does so, Ohio is likely to put its dubious distinction
even further behind it.
In less than a decade, Ohio’s legal system has gone
from being a major drag on the economy to offering a significant
competitive advantage. In his 2008 guide to state litigation
climates for company directors, Steven Hantler, former assistant
general counsel of the Chrysler Corporation and chairman of
the reform-minded American Justice Partnership, ranked Ohio
the fourth-best legal environment in the nation.[59]
The state’s collective tort costs are eleventh-lowest
of the 50 states, and the state’s legislative tort reform
has been ranked third-best in the nation by an independent
think tank.60 Given the state’s recent history, corporate
litigators remain understandably nervous and rank the state’s
climate no higher than thirty-second nationally, which at
least places it in the same league as its neighbors (see graph).[61]
WHERE DOES OHIO GO FROM HERE?
 The
state’s legal system is on the right track, but work
remains to be done. The asbestos double-dipping scandal uncovered
last year by Judge Harry Hanna indicates a need for legislation
demanding greater transparency from asbestos claimants and
the asbestos trusts (see box, left). The executive branch,
however, remains hostile to legal reform: trial-lawyer-friendly
governor Ted Strickland attempted to veto tort-reform legislation
that had been passed while his predecessor, Robert Taft, was
still in office, but the supreme court decided that the action
was unconstitutional.[62] In addition,
it is unclear as to who will permanently replace disgraced
former attorney general Marc Dann, a major ally of trial lawyers,
and what his replacement’s attitude toward them will
be (see box, page 5). Finally, should Trial Lawyers, Inc.
recapture the state supreme court, the legislature’s
hard-earned reforms could be reversed in short order. With
incumbent justices Maureen O’Connor and Evelyn Lundberg
Stratton up for reelection this year, all eyes will be on
what promises to be another hotly contested battle.
The Buckeye State faces a daunting task in restructuring
its industrial economy. Fortunately, it has already embarked
on that task by making improvements in its legal climate.
The people of the state, having finally been exposed to both
sides of the issue in heavily publicized races, have reclaimed
their justice system; they can ill afford to let it return
to the days when it was a paradise for Trial Lawyers, Inc.
Notes
- See Mark D. Partridge et al., Growth and Change:
Employment Growth, Future Prospects, and Change at the Ohio
Rural-Urban Interface (Swank Program in Rural-Urban
Policy, Sept. 2007), available at http://aede.osu.edu/programs/Swank/Employment_growth_and_change_final.pdf.
- Ohio Department of Development, Economic Overview
(June 2008), available at http://www.odod.state.oh.us/research/FILES/E000.pdf.
- See id.
- See Chester E. Finn, Jr., The Self-Inflicted
Economic Death of Ohio, WALL ST. J., June 28, 2008,
at A9.
- State ex rel. Ohio Academy of Trial Lawyers v. Sheward,
691 N.E.2d 1050 (Ohio 1998) (granting writ of mandamus and
writ prohibition).
- Ohio Const. art. II, §15(D) (1851).
- State ex rel. Ohio Academy of Trial Lawyers v. Sheward,
715 N.E.2d 1062, 1123-24 (Ohio 1999) (Lundberg Stratton,
J., dissenting).
- See State ex rel. Dix v. Celeste, 464 N.E.2d 153,
157 (1984), quoted in Sheward, 715 N.E.2d at 1124
(Lundberg Stratton, J., dissenting).
- Recent Cases, State Tort Reform—Ohio Supreme Court
Strikes Down State General Assembly’s Tort Reform Initiative,
113 HARV. L. REV. 804 (2000).
- See, e.g., Brenneman v. R.M.I. Co., 639 N.E.2d
425 (Ohio 1994) (overturning statute of repose); Hiatt
v. Southern Health Facilities, Inc., 626 N.E.2d 71 (Ohio
1994) (overturning medical certificate of merit requirement);
Burgess v. Eli Lilly and Co., 609 N.E.2d 140 (Ohio 1993)
(overturning statute of limitations); Morris v. Savoy,
576 N.E.2d 765 (Ohio 1991) (overturning medical liability
damage caps).
- Andrew Wolfson, A Breach of Duty: Wealth Mounts for
“Prince of Torts” (LOUISVILLE) COURIER-J.,
Jan. 21, 2007.
- See id.
- See id.
- See id.
- See Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc.,
509 U.S. 579, 582 (1993); Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals,
Inc., 43 F.3d 1311, 1314 (9th Cir. 1995); Melanie Ornstein
et al., Bendectin/Diclectin for Morning Sickness: A Canadian
Follow-Up of an American Tragedy, 9 REPROD. TOXICOLOGY 1
(1995).
- Sherine E. Gabriel et al., Risk of Connective-Tissue
Diseases and Other Disorders after Breast Implantation,
330 NEW ENG. J. MED. 1697–1702 (June 16, 1994).
- Jim Hannah, Chesley: Fen-Phen Role Slim, CINCINNATI
ENQUIRER, June 17, 2008.
- See id.
- See Dan Slater, Hung Jury for Last Two Fen-Phen
Lawyers, WSJ.COM LAW BLOG, July 3, 2008, available at
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2008/07/03/hung-jury-for-last-two-fen-phen-lawyers;
Chris Rizo, Fen-Phen Lawyer Wants Out of Jail, LEGALNEWSLINE.COM,
July 23, 2008, available at http://www.legalnewsline.com/news/214313-fen-phen-lawyer-wants-out-of-jail.
- Deborah Goldberg et al., The New Politics of Judicial
Elections, 15 fig. 8 (Justice at Stake, Feb. 2002).
- See id. at 28 (citing Roy Schotland, Financing
Judicial Elections 2000: Change and Challenge, 2001
L. REV. M.S.U.-D.C.L. 1, 25 & n. 103).
- See Goldberg, supra note 20, at 11 fig. 5, 15
fig. 8.
- See Kathleen Hunter, Money Mattering More in
Judicial Elections, STATELINE.ORG, May 12, 2004; Deborah
Goldberg et al., The New Politics of Judicial Elections
2004, 2 fig. 2 (Justice at Stake).
- See Goldberg, supra note 23, at 7 fig. 5, 14 fig.
9.
- Carrie Spencer Ghose, Ohio Judge Reprimanded for Drunk
Driving, AP, Dec. 28, 2005.
- James Sample et al., The New Politics of Judicial
Elections 2006, 3 fig. 2 (Justice at Stake).
- Compare Bureau of Justice Statistics, Tort Trials and
Verdicts in Large Counties, 2001 12 (2004), available
at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/ttvlc01.htm
with Trials and Verdicts in Large Counties, 1996 14 (2000),
available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/ttvlc96.htm.
The two years are the most recent to be released by the
Bureau.
- See Press Release, State of Ohio Department of
Insurance, Nov. 8, 2006.
- See Act of Mar. 28, 2002, S.B. 161, 2002 Ohio
Laws 115.
- See Act of Jan. 10, 2003, S.B. 281, 2002 Ohio
Laws 250.
- Id.
- See Dann Resigns as Attorney General, 10TV.COM,
May 14, 2008, available at http://10tv.com/live/content/teninvestigates/stories/2008/05/14/dann_money.html.
- See id.; Editorial, Dann Should Go, COLUMBUS
DISPATCH, May 4, 2008, at 4G; Editorial, It’s Over,
PLAIN DEALER (Clev.), May 4, 2008, at G2; Editorial, Dann
Is a Disgrace and Should Go, CINCINNATI ENQUIRER, May
3, 2008, at 4B.
- See 3 Aides Ousted; Dann Admits Affair, 10TV.COM,
May 2, 2008, available at http://10tv.com/live/content/teninvestigates/stories/2008/05/02/dann_money.html.
- See Financial Relationships Uncovered Between Dann’s
Friends, 10TV.COM, May 27, 2008, available at http://10tv.com/live/content/teninvestigates/stories/2008/05/27/dann_money.html.
- See Jim Siegel & Mark Niquette, Dispute
Over Veto Heating to a Boil, COLUMBUS DISPATCH, Jan.
10, 2007, at 1A.
- State ex rel. Ohio Gen. Assembly v. Brunner, 115 Ohio
St.3d 103 (2007).
- See OH ACORN Celebrates Lead Paint Victory, ACORN
E-NEWS, Apr. 20, 2007, available at http://www.acorn.org/.
- See BOOK OF LISTS (Crain’s Cleveland Business,
2007).
- See Rhode Island v. Lead Industries Assn., PC
99-5226, No. 2007-121-Appeal (R.I. July 1, 2008); In Re:
Lead Paint Litigation, No. A-73-05, slip op. at 4 (N.J.
June 15, 2007); St. Louis v. Benjamin Moore & Co., No.
SC88230 (Mo. June 12, 2007).
- See Act of Jan. 6, 2005, S.B. 80, 2004 Ohio Laws
144.
- See id.
- See Act of June 1, 2004, H.B. 342, 2004 Ohio Laws
87; Act of June 3, 2004, H.B. 292, 2004 Ohio Laws 88; Act
of Feb. 15, 2005, S.B. 71, 2004 Ohio Laws 180.
- Timothy J. Cosgrove, Tort Reform: Asbestos and Ohio’s
Impact on the National Debate (Nov. 2005), available
at http://library.findlaw.com/2005/Nov/4/214992.html.
- Id.
- Arbino v. Johnson & Johnson, 116 Ohio St.3d 468 (2007).
- Groch v. Gen. Motors Corp., 117 Ohio St.3d 192 (2008).
- Editorial, Cuyahoga Comeuppance, WALL ST. J., Jan. 22,
2007.
- See Daniel Fisher, Double-Dippers, Forbes,
Sept. 4, 2006.
- See id.
- See id.
- See id.
- See id.
- See id.
- See, e.g., S. 220, 2008 Sess. (W. Va. 2008); H.R. 484,
Reg. Sess. (La. 2008).
- See Press Release, supra note 28.
- See Editorial, Good Medicine (Jan. 30,
2008), available at http://www.protectpatientsnow.org/site/c.8oIDJLNnHlE/b.3929369.
- See James Tanella, Managing Director, PACE, a
unit of Navigant Consulting, Inc., presentation at Mealey’s
Asbestos Super Conference, Sept. 26, 2007, 4–8, 11
of hard copy; and Oct. 11, 2007, e-mail correspondence.
- Steven B. Hantler, State Litigation Guide, DIRECTORSHIP
(June 1, 2008).
- See Lawrence J. McQuillan & Hovannes Abramyan,
U.S. Tort Liability Index: 2006 Report (Pacific Research
Institute).
- See U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Institute for Legal
Reform, Lawsuit Climate 2008, available at http://www.instituteforlegalreform.com/states/lawsuitclimate2008/pdf/LawsuitClimateReport.pdf.
- See 117 Ohio St.3d 192.
Center
for Legal Policy
Manhattan Institute for Policy Research
52 Vanderbilt Avenue
New York, NY 10017
(212) 599-7000
www.manhattan-institute.org
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