Though Hartford’s United Technologies Corp. may beg to differ, businesses consider Connecticut’s legal climate to be comparatively accommodating for tort matters, a survey shows.
States with the worst legal climates are California (46th), Alabama (47th), Mississippi (48th), Louisiana (49th), and West Virginia (50th), according to the U.S. Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform survey released Monday.
The states with the best legal climates are Delaware (1st), North Dakota (2nd), Nebraska (3rd), Indiana (4th), and Iowa (5th).
Connecticut scored 24th overall on the survey, just behind No. 23 New York, No. 16 New Hampshire and No. 9 Massachusetts. Vermont is 25th and Rhode Island is 38th.
Connecticut rated high in the survey in judges’ competence (11th); judges’ impartiality (14th); and juries’ fairness (19th); handling scientific and technical evidence and having and enforcing meaningful venue requirements (20th); and discovery (23rd).
Conversely, the state ranked among the bottom half in damage awards (30th) and treatment of class-action and mass-consolidation suits (28th); and timeliness of summary judgment or dismissal (26th).
UTC’s Pratt & Whitney Co. jet-engine division in East Hartford is appealing a recent state court ruling that effectively bars the company from closing its Cheshire operation and moving jobs overseas.
The survey shows that a state’s legal climate affects how and where a company does business and creates jobs. Two-thirds, or 67 percent, of the 1,482 corporate lawyers and executives contacted say a state’s lawsuit environment is likely to impact important business decisions at their company, such as where to locate or expand their businesses. That is up 10 percent from just three years ago.
“With one in ten Americans out of work and record-high jobless rates in states like California, states can no longer afford to discourage new business and new jobs as a result of a dysfunctional legal climate,” said Lisa A. Rickard, president of the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform. “States, particularly those at the bottom of the list, desperately need more jobs, not more lawsuits.”
A trial lawyers’ group attacked the survey as an attempt by the U.S. Chamber to help corporate attorneys to benefit when they shield their corporations after injuring American consumers.
“The chamber’s report is just another shallow attempt to weaken the civil justice system to help its Wall Street and big business financers,” said American Association for Justice spokesman Ray De Lorenzi. “This is just one more call from the corporate lobby to bail out negligent corporations while everyday Americans are left holding the bag.”
Harris Interactive conducted the survey by telephone and online from October 2009 to January 2010. The respondents — general counsels and senior attorneys or executives in companies with annual revenues of at least $100 million — were asked to rank states for their overall treatment of tort, contract, and class action litigation. Among other elements, respondents also ranked states for the impartiality and competence of its judges and the fairness of its juries.
