Congress needs to pass tort reform to protect CARES Act funding

In The News | June 22, 2020

ATRA cited in an opinion editorial by John DeMaggio for The Hill regarding potential lawsuit abuse in the wake of COVID-19.

The American Tort Reform Association (ATRA) reflects that the tort system is a $429 billion industry in America today, and “Aggressive personal injury lawyers target certain professions, industries and individual companies as profit centers.” The ATRA report “The Plaintiffs’ Lawyer Quest for the Holy Grail: The Public Nuisance ‘Super Tort’” states “[Public nuisance] lawsuits are attempts to subject businesses to liability over societal problems… Their mantra is, ‘Let’s make “Big Business” pay.’” The report concludes “[Public nuisance lawsuits] seek to generate massive liability over a complex crisis despite the lack of legal or factual grounding for targeting the companies sued.”

The ATRA website warns that “Some personal injury lawyers, however, view individuals exposed to COVID-19 as a large new pool of plaintiffs, and health care providers and businesses that aid in the response effort or provide essential services as defendants to cast blame. Personal injury law firms are already recruiting individuals to ‘sue now’ even if they have not contracted the disease.” It goes on to list 18 issues they believe are in need of tort reform.