Judicial Hellholes Across America – Workers Comp Version
The American Tort Reform Foundation (ATRF) recently released its annual Judicial Hellholes List. One has to wonder if Workers Comp is mentioned in the annual study.
Actually, WC appears an unlucky 13 times. If you have triskaidekaphobia, you may want to avoid reading the rest of this article. The 13 mentions will be combined for readability.
The first time WC appears in the study is the West Virginia designation as a legal hellhole. The study says WV repeatedly circumvents its established Workers Comp system. West Virginia’s WC system has appeared in this study for years.
The basis for the WV concern is the courts repeatedly allowing the tried-and-true “no-fault” WC system to fall flat on its face. Injured employees are allowed to circumnavigate the sole remedy and sue their employers at will. Would that not cause premiums to soar? Premiums have not risen that much in WV.
The ATRF gives a dishonorable mention to Illinois appellate courts for expanding workers’ compensation liability beyond its intended scope and providing excessive compensation. The Foundation refers to Illinois as being full of activist judges that rule the way they want regardless of the law. This is one of the reasons Illinois WC costs have skyrocketed recently.
The City of Philadelphia is seen as a hellhole due to highly predatory WC plaintiff attorneys.
The bottom line is that West Virginia, Illinois, and the City of Philadelphia were the three judicial hellholes for Workers Comp in this study.
The result will always be huge increases in premiums that must be passed along to the consumer. For all types of legal matters, California won out as being the worst. However, CA did not make the WC list.
I will update the Judicial Hellholes Workers Comp version as I remember to research their website.
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