Articles

As a freshman at Texas A&M University, 18-year-old Elizabeth Helbing and others were invited by two upperclassmen, Oliver Hunt and John Deaver, on a traditional Aggie outing to lay beneath a railroad bridge at night, and feel the "rush" of the train speeding overhead.  Wearing flip-flops and making her way by the light of cellphones, Helbing s ...

The website Faces of Lawsuit Abuse has posted a video of the Top Ten Most Ridiculous Lawsuits of 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FP6rmT3SECY The list includes plaintiffs who lack actual injuries, class action lawsuits that have no merit, and litigants who seemingly want to use the civil justice system to obtain compensation for every bad th ...

For most things, there's an app.  For everything else, there's a lawsuit. Just look at a new article describing the amount of frivolous litigation happening in the Nothern District of California, or the Food Court, which is particularly friendly to food mislabeling lawsuits.  Often these suits are brought by repeat named plaintiffs who, along w ...

Tapping their seemingly endless supply of ingenuity, plaintiffs' lawyers have come up with a new legal theory for reaching deep pockets, and just the name would send chills up the spine of Steve Jobs, Henry Ford, or Jonas Salk.  Under the theory of "innovator liability," manufacturers of brand-name drugs can be held liable for injuries caused by t ...

Today PLF filed an amicus brief in Tincher v. Omega arguing that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court should determine whether manufacturers are liable for injuries caused by defectively designed products under a negligence standard.  Pennsylvania is notorious for litigation abuse—although thanks to a strong push for tort reform in that state, this y ...

After a reign of two years, Pennsylvania has given up its crown.  California now claims the woeful title of worst place for civil justice in the nation.  This critique may be due in part to the fact that, according to the American Tort Reform Association, California is the "undisputed heavyweight champion of the consumer class action."  The sta ...