According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, cases of asbestos fraud are on the rise. Some cases involve fabricated plaintiffs, while others involve plaintiffs’ lawyers who have “double-dipped” by collecting funds from asbestos bankruptcy trusts and then suing additional companies. Just recently, two trial lawyers operating in West Virginia have been disciplined for employing a radiologist to make fraudulent asbestos diagnoses.

When government officials hire companies for publicly funded projects, they typically have to go through a public bidding process. This transparent system ensures that companies don’t receive government contracts simply because of political connections, and that taxpayers receive the best bargains for their money.

But many state attorneys general (AG) have long skirted this system by providing huge chunks of state legal business to their trial lawyer friends. More often than not, these lawyers also happen to be big time campaign contributors. In other words, it’s a “pay to play” deal – trial lawyers make large political donations and, in return, receive millions of dollars in work.

The costs of lawsuits are high. Every single person in the U.S. pays an annual lawsuit tax of $857, and businesses spend billions of dollars a year fighting often unmerited lawsuits. Clearly, our nation is wasting a lot of money on lawsuits instead of jobs and economic growth. 

But lawsuits don’t just drain our pocketbooks – they also sometimes force the closure of great community organizations and establishments. Consider the case of Basketball Town, a children’s recreation center and community resource that had to shut its doors after facing an abusive lawsuit.

Last week, the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform released a new study about the costs of litigation across the globe. The study offers some upsetting, if not surprising, news about the U.S. legal system: it’s the most expensive one in the world!

Specifically, legal costs in the U.S. account for 1.7 percent of our GDP. Legal costs in other countries, like the Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal, account for only around .4 percent of GDP!

Editor's Note: Project Lawsuit Abuse regularly highlights lawsuit abuse news from across the country. Today, Tom Scott, Executive Director of California Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse, contributed a guest post for Project Lawsuit Abuse.

In 1998, the California Legislature designated the second full week in May each year to honor the important contributions of citizens who serve on juries, making citizens’ right to trial by jury possible. This year marks the 16th Anniversary of Juror Appreciation Week. For those of you who have served on a jury, CALA would like to applaud you.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers recently won a class-action settlement against Sketchers shoes, with a judge ruling that Sketchers advertisements made “unfounded claims that the footwear would help people lose weight and strengthen muscles.”

We won’t get into the facts behind this lawsuit, but we will tell you about the terms of the settlement. Plaintiffs in the case – of which there were about 520,000 – will each receive up to $84. That amount is a partial refund of the cost of a pair of Skechers Shape-Up shoes. The attorneys in the case, however, will receive $5 million.

Louisiana, a state well-known for aggressive personal injury lawyers and sue-happy residents, saw a recent twist in the traditional slip and fall case. Just recently, a woman sued a fitness club after stepping on a moving treadmill and injuring herself. The lawsuit argues that there were no warning signs that the machine was dangerous, and that fitness club employees should have stopped her from stepping on the machine.

We recently told you about California’s problems with shakedown lawsuits associated with Proposition 65, a law that requires businesses to post warning signs if their premises contain a product known by the state to cause cancer or be a reproductive toxicant. Many California trial lawyers are targeting small businesses who fail to post the signs, demanding money up front and giving owners no time to fix violations.

We also told you about legislation moving through California’s state legislature to address the problem. Assembly Bill 227 would offer businesses desperately needed relief from abusive Prop. 65 lawsuits by giving them two weeks to fix violations.

Tort reformers have been turning up all over the internet recently. We took the liberty of rounding up some of the standouts. You may recognize a few friends of Project Lawsuit Abuse in there. Here are some of the newsmakers from around the country.

Gov. Brown vows to amend chemical disclosure law

California’s got a lot going for it. Great weather, beautiful scenery, you name it. But one thing the state definitely doesn’t have? A good business climate. In fact, a new report from Chief Executive Magazine ranked the state as the nation’s worst for doing business!

This news shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who follows the world of legal reform. California also has the nation’s worst legal climate, and the two facts are no doubt connected. Lawsuit abuse kills jobs and makes it difficult for businesses to thrive.