Litigation

Pacific Research Institute 2010 Tort Liability Index

By James R. Copland

The Pacific Research Institute has released its U.S. Tort Liability Index for 2010, again authored by PRI fellows Lawrence J. McQuillan and Hovannes Abramyan.

I haven't yet had time to read the report, but I will note that this criticism by Andrew Sullivan is profoundly unfair. Sullivan calls PRI's decision to have Sarah Palin write a foreword to the report an example of "epistemic closure" and cites with apparent approval a reader claiming this choice exemplifies an "intellectual void" in think tanks. But Palin was obviously chosen because the state she governed until recently -- Alaska -- came in first in the PRI rankings, as she makes pretty clear in the brief foreword itself. Might PRI instead have chosen Marie Gryphon to talk about Alaska's unique-in-America loser pays rules? Sure. But picking the recently departed governor of the #1 state certainly makes sense.

Full post as published by Point of Law on June 03, 2010 (boomark / email).