In a follow up, to a blog I did earlier in the year, it’s worth noting that the Minneapolis Tribune picked up the same story today. The number of overall court filings are up in Minnesota , but civil filings are down and make up a very small part of all cases. Despite the frivolous claims of the The U S Chamber for Legal Reform, there is no tort crisis. Other than people with these claims can’t get their cases to court because of all the other cases that are filling the system. Don’t agree? check the numbers yourself:
In 2008 there were 1,939,512 total court filing
40,580 of those were civil filings.
- 4,225 were Personal Injury claims
- 208 of those were Wrongful Death
- 129 were Medical Malpractice
Also there were 14,143 other civil, but no specific category for business lawsuits. It is always interesting to see how often, companies that are at the heart of the tort reform movement, are involved in so many suits themselves. They seem to see the use of the court as their constitutional right in those cases.
