Legal Reform From The Front Lines In South Carolina
February 19, 2009
At the American Justice Partnership’s recent partner conference, many state tort reform leaders spoke about actions their states are taking to the kind of fair, stable legal environment needed to attract business investment and jobs. With legal reform dead at the national level for the foreseeable future, the states represent the front lines in the battle to take back our courts from the trial bar.
Recently, I asked Cam Crawford, Executive Director of the South Carolina Civil Justice Coalition, to do a guest post on developments in South Carolina:
Guest Post by Cam Crawford:
Speaker of the SC House Bobby Harrell and 45 co-sponsors introduced the South Carolina Fairness in Civil Justice Act of 2009 (H. 3489) on February 10, 2009. According to Speaker Harrell:
“This is reform for a reason, and that reason is to make South Carolina a more competitive state and a better place to do business. Our state’s future hinges on the strength of our economy and its ability to grow.”
Even though we enacted significant reform in 2005, South Carolina is still lagging behind neighboring states in legal climate surveys, causing us to lose jobs and investment to North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia. In the midst of continuously escalating unemployment rates and an uncertain economic environment, the competition among these states for jobs is extremely fierce.
Senator Larry Martin (R-Pickens) made this point crystal clear when he introduced the Senate companion tort reform bill (S. 350):
“If South Carolina is going to be competitive with our neighboring states in keeping and attracting jobs and investment, it is important that we take a common sense approach to our civil justice rules. [This bill will] bring about a greater sense of equity to the tort system and to encourage investment in South Carolina.”
Even setting aside the national economic crisis, SC leaders recognize that we must change the way we operate to compete in a global economy. When choosing sites for new plants, businesses look for locations with low costs and positive business climates. Civil justice issues – such as a predictable and stable litigation environment – play a huge role in creating positive business climates. The South Carolina Civil Justice Coalition (SCCJC), the unified voice of the South Carolina business community on legal reform issues, has identified three objectives to improve the business climate of the Palmetto State.
First, SC needs a more predictable and stable legal system to increase business investment and job creation.
Second, the State needs to reduce the cost of litigation. A SC company can pay about $30,000 to defend against just one frivolous lawsuit. Considering the median personal income in SC is $28,285, one frivolous lawsuit is equal to one lost job for our state. Third, and maybe most importantly, SC needs to gain ground on its regional competition by improving its legal climate ranking. According to the U.S. Chamber’s survey of state lawsuit climates, 42 states have fairer legal systems than SC, including our neighbors in Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.
There is an opportunity for our state to gain a significant, competitive advantage by aggressively promoting legal reform. That is why the SCCJC is supporting reform bills H. 3489 and S. 350. The reforms in these bills include:
- placing reasonable limits on punitive and non-economic damages; class action reform;
- bringing accountability to the state government’s hiring of trial lawyers to sue industry;
- limiting the amount of bond that a business has to post when appealing an extremely large verdict;
- closing loopholes in the Statute of Repose that trial lawyers are exploiting; allowing the introduction of the non-use of seat belts in civil cases;
- re-instating the longstanding economic loss rule that was the legal standard prior to the Colleton Prep Academy v. Hoover Universal case;
- and, addressing the Supreme Court’s decision in Drury Development v. Foundation Insurance that could lead to abuse in discovery and increased litigation costs in cases involving claims seeking to “pierce the corporate veil.”
To learn more about the legal reform effort underway in South Carolina, email Cam at scciviljusticecoalition@yahoo.com.
Posted by Dan Pero in the categories: South Carolina, Tort Reform
2 Responses to “Legal Reform From The Front Lines In South Carolina”
[...] guest post on this reform legislation and how it will help South Carolina. You can find it here. Somehow I doubt Mr. Strom’s endorsement will be forthcoming, since trial lawyers [...]
Does anybody have any experience with these North Carolina Lawyers ?