Seeking nominations for plaintiffs' heckholes!

The American Tort Reform Association tomorrow will tell the nation which of our esteemed judicial jurisdictions are too liberal and "unfair" to big business with the release of its 2006 Judicial HellholesTM report. I've always thought that the definition of a "hellhole" (or "heckhole" as someone suggested, to avoid any trademark violations) is in the eye of the beholder.

There are plenty of jurisdictions where juries rarely award money to injured plaintiffs, like a big chunk of Pennsylvania, where in 2005, juries in 22 counties handed down defense verdicts in 100 percent of all medical malpractice cases. I have no data to back this up, but the story about Shelby County, Alabama is that the only time it ever saw a plaintiff's verdict was when the plaintiff was the local country club. None of these places, of course, ever make the ATRA list, so I thought I'd make a list of my own, just to provide a little balance. How about some nominations for plaintiff's heckholes?

Comments

[JMG]

That would be Michigan.

[JMG]

To elaborate with just one example from among thousands of possibilities: Michigan -- the state where the "open and obvious" defense was successfully used to explain why a blind person should not recover for slip and fall injuries suffered from water on the floor of a public restroom.

[Maren Chaloupka]

My understanding is that 45 of the last 46 medical malpractice trials in Wyoming have resulted in verdicts for the doctors. And yet, the jurors continue to believe propaganda claiming that doctors are leaving the state because of mythical out-of-control jury verdicts.

[Aaron]

I believe that the rationale the Michigan court applied for applying "open and obvious" to a blind person was that it is supposed to be an objective test. Which is not to say that an objective standard is fair to the blind, or that I have no criticism for the Michigan appellate courts. (I may have one or two...
http://thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/2006/06/evictions-from-manufactured-home.html
http://thestoppedclock.blogspot.com/2006/11/michigan-what-if-what-if-school-bus.html )

See also the discussion of stare decisis in Michigan at Crime and Federalism.
http://federalism.typepad.com/crime_federalism/2006/09/michigan_suprem.html