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“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.”
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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.” |
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