“Judicial Hellhole” In Missouri Targeted For Tort Reform

A bill under consideration in Missouri would drastically restrict consumer lawsuits. Missouri has become a battleground for tort reform, with ATRA (the American Tort Reform Association) describing the state court in St. Louis as a magnet for national consumer cases and designating it the nation’s number one “judicial hellhole.” The proposed legislation “would make it more difficult to recover damages, would prevent civil suits filed through the Merchandising Practices Act to recover money in case of death or injury and would make it harder to file class-action lawsuits,” says a Springfield News Star article. One of the bill’s major proponents, the president of a building products company that is being sued in a class action, personally invested more than $18 million last year in Missouri politics, “mostly by contributing hefty sums to Republican candidates.”