Illinois legislator says more awareness needed about costs of lawsuit abuse

(The Center Square) – The American Tort Reform Association marks this week as Lawsuit Abuse Awareness Week and an Illinois state legislator says more can be done to raise awareness.

“Lawsuit Abuse Awareness Week is about shining a light on the injustices plaguing our civil justice system,” ATRA said in a statement. “Join us as we highlight abuses and misuses of our courts and help us open a dialogue on why education surrounding lawsuit abuse is much needed.”

In an opinion editorial published this week, Zach Mottl of Atlas Tool Works in Lyons writes: “Without meaningful changes to the regulatory and legal landscape, Illinois businesses will continue to suffer under the weight of excessive litigation and stacked costs.”

“Small business owners like myself find ourselves navigating a minefield of legal risks. One lawsuit, whether justified or not, can quickly drain resources,” Mottl wrote. “Illinois' legal environment, with its penchant for excessive tort litigation, exacerbates this.”

State Rep. Dan Ugaste, R-Geneva, said Democrats in control of the Illinois legislature need to be aware of the economic climate created by a litigious environment.

“Now look, we want to protect our residents. We want to protect our workers, absolutely, but again, we’re creating an imbalance here with the number of bills and the number of regulations we’re putting on business and others in order to just exist here in the state of Illinois,” Ugaste told The Center Square. “We’ve taken it too far is our problem.”

But it’s not just businesses being impacted.

“We do have a significant problem as far as an uneven playing field and extremely high costs, especially if you’re a business but also if you’re a unit of government,” Ugaste said. “And if it’s a unit of government, that just costs the taxpayers.”

A recent Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse report showed excessive tort litigation cost over 215,000 jobs and more than $2 billion in lost revenue for Illinois.

The Illinois Trial Lawyers Association regularly dismisses such reports as scare tactics promoted by big business.

“The CALA study is not new. It’s a recycled, dishonest 'report' that has been debunked time and time again,” said ITLA Associate President Sara Salger. “There is no correlation between our courts and the economy.”