Texas Coast and Rio Grande Valley Still ‘Judicial Hellholes,’ Group Says

The Texas Gulf Coast and the Rio Grande Valley areas retained their reputation as “Judicial Hellholes” in 2007, according to a tort reform advocacy group that ranks jurisdictions it believes consistently hand out unfair jury awards in civil lawsuits.

The American Tort Reform Foundation’s 2007 Judicial Hellholes report ranked the Texas coast and Rio Grande Valley in second place, behind South Florida, as one of the toughest areas in the United States for corporate defendants to receive a fair trial. The ATRF said these Texas jurisdictions have made their way into every “hellhole” report since the project’s inception.

This year, the report said, there was a surge in personal injury lawsuits related to dredging, a judge’s “pocket veto” of an appeal of a $32 million award against a pharmaceutical company in a case where a juror knew and had taken loans from the plaintiff, and several particularly ridiculous lawsuits filings. Despite strong statewide legislative reforms enacted in 2004, this area stubbornly refuses to shed its “Judicial Hellholes” reputation, according to the report

ATRF listed the nation’s top “hellholes” as: South Florida; Texas’ Rio Grande Valley and Gulf Coast; Cook County, Ill.; the state of West Virginia; Clark County, Nev.; and Atlantic County, N.J.

The state of Oklahoma was placed on ATRF’s “dishonorable mention list.” The group cited Gov. Brad Henry’s veto of 2007 tort reform legislation that passed the state legislature with bi-partisan support as one reason the state received the dishonorable mention ranking.

Topics Texas