This op-ed was authored by ATRA’s President Tiger Joyce and was originally published by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
New York’s Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul is aiming to reduce car insurance premiums in her state–now averaging more than $4,000–by targeting staged accident fraud, tightening the serious injury threshold, and reforming liability rules. Trial lawyers hate it.
But it reflects a bipartisan truth: we all pay the price for frivolous lawsuits. The average Arkansas family of three now pays $2,637 annually in a “tort tax” due to excessive litigation, a more than 43 percent increase since 2022.
So if a Democratic governor in one of the bluest states in the country can take on the trial bar to lower costs for working families, why would deep-red Arkansas’ Republican attorney general enable it?
Tim Griffin–Arkansas’ 57th attorney general, former U.S. representative, decorated Army JAG officer, and self-described “bold conservative”–built his career on a familiar Republican platform: Free markets, tort reform, and protecting consumers from government over-reach. But since taking office in 2023, Griffin’s embrace of litigation looks less like consumer protection and more like well-funded political theater.
Here’s how it works: An AG retains a private plaintiffs’ firm on a contingency-fee basis–often after that firm proposes the lawsuit to the AG–to pursue litigation against a perceived, deep-pocketed corporation. The firm does the legal legwork, and if the case settles, they take a percentage of the recovery. In some cases, those fee arrangements can be 25-33 percent of the total settlement.
Read the full piece by Tiger Joyce in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette here.
