In one of my May 3rd posts I wrote about how a Washington DC judge was suing his local dry cleaners for $67 million just because they misplaced a pair of his pants for a week.  My point was that asinine (a.k.a. frivolous) lawsuits add much to the cost of doing business – and that those costs are always passed on to the consumer.

Last night I sat down to read the May 2007 edition of the US Chamber of Commerce’s publication uschamber.com, and was glad to see their lead story was about this very topic.

According to the article, the US Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform’s (ILR) nationwide survey evaluating the legal climate in business, “lawsuits force the average American family to pay an additional $3,520 per year in goods and services.”

One more time:

Lawsuits force the average American family to pay
an additional $3,520 per year in goods and services.

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For the record, I have a love/hate relationship with lawyers. I love ’em when they’re sticking up for me, and I hate ’em when they’re splitting hairs on meanings and definitions to manipulate original intent.

The ILR survey was pretty specific, determining legal climates down to the city and county level. Los Angeles, Chicago, New Orleans, and New York were listed as cities having the least favorable litigation environments.

The worst states were West Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and Illinois.

So what were the states with the best litigation climates?  Delaware was at the top for the sixth year in a row. Minnesota, Nebraska, Iowa, and Maine were also ranked at the top.

If you’re interested, you can visit the ILR site for more info, and even read their 36-page annual report if you like.

But the bottom line is that each year your family is burning through an additional $3,500 just because of frivolous law suits started by greedy people and fueled by unethical lawyers. Got any ideas on what to do about this?

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Filed in Work, Business, Opinion, Customer Service, Workplace