In its Judicial Hellholes 2006® report issued last December, ATRA cited six jurisdictions as America's worst for lawsuit abuse. Illinois is home to three of those jurisdictions, including Cook, Madison and St. Clair counties. And Cook County is the worst of those three.

That's why ATRA has "gone to the wall" at Alexian Field, home of the Schaumburg Flyers, to remind suburban Chicago baseball fans that as workers, consumers and taxpayers, they continue to foot the bill for the economy-sapping shenanigans of shameless personal injury lawyers.

Not coincidentally, as the volume of civil litigation in Cook County has increased, Illinois' economy has suffered. While our national economy grew strongly out of the last recession, Illinois' economy expanded at an average annual rate that was nearly 40 percent weaker (source: Bureau of Economic Analysis).

Illinois also lost good paying manufacturing jobs at a faster rate than the rest of the country (source: Bureau of Labor Statistics). And while there are several additional factors that contribute to manufacturing job loss, the unavoidable fact is that many businesses flee high litigation jurisdictions.

In fact, while running for governor last summer, former Illinois State Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka said, "It should come as no surprise that companies like Honda are choosing to expand their operations and build new plants in other states."

Directly below is an extended excerpt from ATRA's 2006 Judicial Hellholes report that details the reasons Cook County ranked as America's fourth worst jurisdiction in which to be sued. To read the entire 2006 report (with extensive endnotes) or any of the previous Hellholes reports, click here.

2006 HELLHOLE # 4

Cook County, Illinois

In 2005, Cook County made its debut on the Hellholes list at # 2. The county has a long-established reputation as a friendly place for lawsuits and hostility toward corporate defendants. Cook County hosts a disproportionate share of the state's lawsuits.

According to statistics compiled by the Illinois judiciary, 63 percent of the state's major civil litigation is filed in Cook County, even though the county is home to just 42 percent of the state's population. A decade earlier, Cook County's share of state litigation (46.6 percent) was roughly proportionate to its population share, which has grown slightly since. The county also draws large numbers of cases from across the Midwest and beyond.

As detailed in the 2005 Hellholes report, Cook County joined the list of Judicial Hellholes due to a substantial surge in asbestos lawsuits, its embrace of class action lawsuits, evidentiary decisions that favored plaintiffs over defendants, and the unwillingness of some judges to dismiss claims with little or no connection to the county. Some of these problems continue today and were accentuated by the flow of litigation to Cook County after Madison and St. Clair counties cracked down on forum shopping and prioritized the asbestos claims of those who are truly sick over those with no sign of injury. Cook County has a reputation for pushing asbestos cases forward and setting many cases for trial each month, which may come at the expense of defendants' due process rights. Some Cook County judges also are known for permitting personal injury lawyers to go on "fishing expeditions" that require defendants, to photocopy, organize and produce thousands of business records spanning decades that have no connection to the allegations of the lawsuit at issue; an expensive and time consuming proposition.

Damage to the Economy and Lost Jobs

As the volume of civil litigation in Cook County has grown, Illinois' economy has suffered. An area's reputation for litigiousness factors into many employers' decisions about remaining in or relocating from a particular state or county. For example, Chicago, which is home to about 15 percent of the state's manufacturing industry, has lost 453 plants over the past five years. In 2005 alone, 106 plants left Cook County. The state as a whole also suffers from its unfriendly business environment. In fact, Illinois experienced a loss of 32,000 manufacturing jobs last year. Coming out of recession from 2002 through 2005, the national economy grew at an average annual rate of 2.9 percent, but Illinois' economy struggled with growth of only 1.8 percent, or nearly 40 percent less.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Illinois lost 23 percent or 199,500 of its good-paying manufacturing jobs many in Cook County from 2000 through August 2006, while the national loss of manufacturing jobs over the same period was comparably less at 17 percent. While there are several additional factors that contribute to manufacturing job loss, it is a plainly established fact that businesses, both small and large, avoid high litigation jurisdictions like the plague.

Though she ultimately failed to defeat incumbent Governor Rod Blagojevich in the November 7, 2006 general election, challenger Judy Baar Topinka, the state treasurer, argued during the campaign that outsized damage awards coming from Cook County, as well as Madison and neighboring St. Clair counties, can send the message that the state is hostile to business. Topinka told reporters at one campaign stop that, "[w]ith three of the six worst counties for litigation abuse right here in Illinois, it should come as no surprise that companies like Honda are choosing to expand their operations and build new plants in other states."

Help Wanted: Area Employers Seek Defense Lawyers

Unfortunately, as Illinois' manufacturing sector declines, litigation has become a booming business in Cook County, according to the National Law Journal. As Citigroup commercial loan manager Dan Bishop observed, "The firms [in Chicago] are growing, they're building up the number of lawyers and their hours are growing." When lawsuits proliferate, plaintiffs' lawyers prosper. But while litigation continues to blow into the windy city, defense law firms also are beefing up their presence in Cook County to better serve their corporate clients.

Many major law firms are considering opening offices in Chicago. Those that already have offices are considering vast expansions or mergers. For example, Paul Hastings, Janofsky & Walker plans to open a 100-lawyer office this year; Reed Smith is considering merging with a Chicago-area firm; and Morgan Lewis & Bockius is said to be planning on doubling the size of its 40-member Chicago office. With many employers in the services and financial sectors moving to the Midwest to escape high rents on the coasts, it makes sense for law firms to follow. But make no mistake, the growing concentration of lawsuits in Cook County and southern Illinois also serves as a big draw. And considering the caliber of some lawsuits filed there, such as the 2005 class action against Loews Cineplex Theaters alleging movie previews last too long, the Cook County litigation defense business continues to look promising.

Solutions Proposed, But Stalled

In February 2006, Illinois legislators, frustrated with the poor business and litigation climate in their state, introduced a series of bills to address the problems in Cook County and other areas. Their proposals included requiring plaintiffs to file their lawsuits in the county where most of the allegations behind the lawsuit took place; restricting class action certification to cases in which most of the plaintiffs are from Illinois; ensuring the case is heard in a court with a rational relationship to the lawsuit; making each defendant pay only for its fair share of fault of the total damage award; allowing a defendant to request that juries determine liability and punitive damages in separate phases of a trial, thereby establishing closer judicial review of non-economic damage awards, such as compensation for pain and suffering; establishing new criteria for the admissibility of expert testimony; and, in asbestos cases, allowing juries to consider sources of asbestos, beyond the defendant's products or workplace, to which the plaintiff was exposed. But few of these proposals were even considered in a committee hearing, let alone put up for a floor vote in 2006.

Access to Health Care Begins to Improve, But the Future Is Uncertain

Illinois lawmakers have managed to enact one significant reform, however, in the area of medical malpractice. In late 2005, a new Illinois law took effect, limiting pain and suffering awards in such cases to $1 million against hospitals and $500,000 against doctors. The reform was overdue. As Cook County obstetrician-gynecologist Basil Chronis recently wrote in the Chicago Tribune, when she started practicing in 1960, her annual malpractice insurance premium was $224.206 Now the yearly cost is $155,000.207 In the year since enactment of medical liability reforms, malpractice lawsuits in Cook County dropped 25 percent down from an average of 1,332 filings over the previous five years to 979 in the one-year period since Governor Rod Blagojevich signed the bill and the reforms took effect. While it often takes time for cautious insurers to adjust premiums downward as they wait to see that an initial drop in litigation is not merely a fleeting aberration or that the reform stands up to future court challenges, there is evidence that the premium spikes characterizing the market in recent years (including a 15 percent increase in 2005) have stopped and rates may be beginning to come down.

Insurers have good reason to be cautious. In 1996, medical malpractice lawsuit filings in Cook County experienced a similar drop after the legislature enacted a law limiting non-economic damages, but that reform was declared invalid by the Illinois Supreme Court the following year. The award limits were dismantled and the size and frequency of awards continued unabated.

It is possible that the state's high court could again strike down the latest medical malpractice reform, which is already being challenged in lower courts, including Cook County.