THE EFFECT OF STATE TORT REFORMS ON CLAIM FILINGS

Abstract

: Currently, the U.S. Congress continues to debate the passage of a tort reform bill. Such a bill is intended to limit legal liabilities, particularly as they relate to product accidents. While passage of a federal law in the 1990s remains difficult, many states found tort reform a successful proposition a decade earlier. The intent of this paper is to add to the discussion regarding the expected effects of tort law modifications by providing some background on the most widely enacted state tort reforms, presenting results from the literature on actual and expected effects of these reforms, and presenting new empirical evidence on the efficacy of these same reforms. The results indicate that caps on non-economic damages and imposition of fines on frivolous litigation are negatively related to the rate of tort filings, while modification of joint and several liability demonstrates a positive relationship with the rate of tort filings, and reforms of the collateral source rule and imposition of punitive damages demonstrate no effect.