This piece was written and published by the New York Post Editorial Board.
Even though the pandemic delayed much litigation for most of 2020, New York City managed to qualify as one of the nation’s top “judicial hellholes” for the third year in a row, and actually got worse.
The American Tort Reform Foundation’s annual Judicial Hellhole report ranks the jurisdictions in the country with the most rampant civil-justice abuse. This year, the city moved up to No. 2 after sitting at No. 3 for two years. Only the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania earned a worse ranking; the state of California took the third spot.
Driving the city down was its spike in “nuclear verdicts,” when a plaintiff’s lawyer cozened the jury into awarding an outrageous amount for pain and suffering, far beyond any reasonable compensation.
Attorneys use tactics like misrepresenting numbers from previous verdicts, painting the award as a punishment instead of compensation, and “anchoring” the amount by suggesting a wildly sky-high number so that the jury still settles on an excessive amount.
Read the full piece in the New York Post.
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