2003 Harris Interactive Survey on State Liability Remarks

U.S. Chamber of Commerce
April 9, 2003

Good morning everyone, and welcome. I'm Tom Donohue, president and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States. I'm pleased to be joined by Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner, Delaware Secretary of State Dr. Harriet Smith Windsor, and Humphrey Taylor, Chairman of the Harris Poll. Mississippi State Senator Tommy Robertson was scheduled to be with us today, but he had to remain at home to deal with flooding in his house caused by heavy rains that have pounded the south recently.

We are here today to take another important step in our comprehensive campaign to restore fairness and balance to America's legal system.

At the federal level, the Chamber and our affiliate, the Institute for Legal Reform, are pushing very hard to pass a class action bill, to reform the medical liability system, and to forge a consensus approach on asbestos litigation that we can take to Capitol Hill.

Federal solutions to these problems are critical in restraining the kind of runaway litigation across our country that is sucking vitality and innovation out of our economy, our health care system and our way of life.

Yet any serious program of legal reform must also address the significant abuses and shortcomings we find in state legal systems.

This is why, three years ago, the Institute for Legal Reform began supporting a vigorous — and let me say, successful — effort to educate voters as they choose state Supreme Court justices and attorneys general.

And it is why we are here today — to provide all 50 states with new and vital information about their own legal systems…whether those systems help or hurt their local economies…and what they can do to improve the legal climate, attract more businesses, and create more jobs.

One sure way to keep businesses away from a state is for its courts to award excessive punitive damages. Fortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court this week overturned a punitive damage award that was 145 times greater than the compensatory damages in the case.

The high court's decision imposes significant constitutional limits on punitive damage awards and is not only a big win for the entire business community, but is a warning to state courts that their days of unfairly and arbitrarily punishing companies are numbered. ILR funded the amicus brief that our National Chamber Litigation Center filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, and we are pleased that the Court's opinion agreed with our position.

A year ago, we asked Harris Interactive to rank state liability systems based on the perceptions of more than 800 corporate general counsels from companies across America.

And for the first time in the Chamber's history, we focused a national spotlight on the business climates of the lowest ranking states in an effort to spur legal reform in those states.

While this approach triggered some controversy, it also produced results.

The Chamber's advertising and communications program in Mississippi, the lowest ranking state in last year's Harris survey, encouraged the legislature to take decisive action. A more recent campaign in West Virginia also helped bring about important legislative reforms.

Today we are releasing the second annual ranking of state legal systems and with it, a major new advertising and public education campaign to highlight the tremendous benefits of a sound legal system, as well as the terrible price of having a system that falls short.

Humphrey Taylor will go into greater detail about the poll in a minute, but I want to say that the overriding purpose in commissioning this research is to encourage a process of reform that will help states attract business and create jobs.

States and localities must know that if they continue to maintain legal systems that attract abusive, runaway litigation or foster an unfair environment for companies, those companies can and will go somewhere else.

Yet if state and local leaders work to improve their legal systems, they will bring great benefits to the people they serve – more jobs, more investment and more revenues to pay for schools, roads and health care.

To help get this important message across, we have today begun a major national advertising campaign highlighting some of our new findings. This campaign includes full-page ads — displayed on the easels before you — in The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.

We are also running ads in states with particularly flawed legal systems, such as Alabama and Louisiana, and in targeted problem jurisdictions, most notably, Madison County, Illinois and Jefferson County, Texas.

We also recognize that the best results will come from a cooperative partnership effort with dedicated state officials who share our views about the importance of the legal climate to economic growth and jobs.

And that's why we are pleased and honored by the presence here today of Governor Minner and Secretary of State Windsor from Delaware, which ranks first.

In closing, I want to stress that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce created the Institute for Legal Reform five years ago to make America's legal system simpler, fairer and faster for everyone.

America's economic future, our competitiveness in the world, our legacy as an innovator, and our commitment to justice and fair play, all demand serious action in Congress, in the courts and in states and local communities across the country.

We are committed to this course of action. We are making good progress and we're not going to rest until we have a legal system in this nation that we can all be proud of.