Today, the American Tort Reform Association announced that New York is a “Lawsuit Inferno” in its new Legislative HeatCheck report, citing the state legislature’s continued pursuit of liability expansion.
“New York has cemented itself as a raging inferno of lawsuit abuse due to the trial bar’s stranglehold over lawmakers,” Tiger Joyce, ATRA president said. “Legislative leaders’ inability to stand up to the trial lawyers’ agenda is crippling the state’s civil justice system.”
A top concern this session is Senate Bill S8485A/Assembly Bill A9232B, which would significantly expand damages available in wrongful death suits. The bill eliminates limits on subjective noneconomic damages like grief and loss of companionship, opening the door to excessive, unpredictable awards driven by emotion rather than facts. ATRA further notes that this legislation was vetoed twice before by Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul.
“We appreciate Gov. Hochul’s willingness to stand up to the trial bar and protect New Yorkers’ wallets from the devastating costs of liability expansion,” Joyce said. “Allowing unlimited damages for nebulous claims like ‘loss of nurturing’ inevitably leads to nuclear verdicts that increase costs across the board. This legislation perpetuates New York’s lawsuit abuse crisis and would make the state an outlier on wrongful death liability.”
ATRA’s also monitoring a slate of bills that could unleash a litigation torrent by creating new private rights of action, which did not make it to the Governor’s desk this year. These bills include the Consumer and Small Business Protection Act (Senate Bill S795A/Assembly Bill A7138), 21st Century Antitrust Act (Senate Bill S6748B/Assembly Bill A10323) and the EMPIRE Act (Senate Bill S541B/Assembly Bill A9012) — a clone of California’s Private Attorneys General Act, which would enable bounty-hunting lawsuits against employers.
“This barrage of bills represents the pursuit of a litigation free-for-all that could bankrupt companies over minor violations while lining the pockets of a select few personal injury lawyers,” Joyce said. “They exemplify New York’s embrace of profit motives over responsible policymaking.”
New York’s legal climate is consistently ranked among the worst in the nation, most recently named fourth-worst in the American Tort Reform Foundation’s annual Judicial Hellholes® reports. Either New York, New York City or Albany have been included among those named Judicial Hellholes® for nearly 15 years.
Excessive tort costs impose a staggering $2,319 “tort tax” on every New Yorker annually while sapping more than 418,000 jobs from the state’s economy.
“Rather than reverse course, Albany is doubling down by entertaining the trial bar’s liability-expanding agenda,” Joyce said. “State leaders must instead work together to seek reasonable legal reforms that promote affordability and access to justice.”
A recent report from ATRA further revealed how the trial bar exerts its oversized influence through a torrent of campaign cash and advertising designed to solicit more clients. Since 2017, the Top 20 plaintiffs’ firm campaign donors funneled more than $4.7 million to New York political campaigns. New York trial lawyers also spent $97 million in 2023 alone on more than 1 million local legal services ads — including a 107% increase in outdoor advertising compared to 2019 levels.
“This incestuous flow of money between the personal injury bar and elected officials, combined with a blitz of often misleading ads, raises ethics concerns and exemplifies trial lawyers’ lack of transparency,” Joyce said.
ATRA’s Legislative HeatCheck report evaluates a select group of states’ progress — or lack thereof — in enacting meaningful tort reform measures during their most recent legislative sessions.
New York’s legislature was named a “Lawsuit Inferno” alongside state lawmakers in Colorado, Maryland, Missouri and New Hampshire. The full Legislative HeatCheck report is available at heatcheck.atra.org.
