THE HARRIS POLL^® #9, February 20, 2002

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by Humphrey Taylor

A new issue of The Harris Poll^® finds that senior corporate lawyers see substantial differences between the states’ liability systems – the judges, juries, processes, timeliness, and their treatment of tort and contract litigation and class action suits for example. At one end of the spectrum they have much more favorable opinions of the courts in Delaware (ranked #1), Virginia (#2), Washington (#3), Kansas (#4) and Iowa (#5). At the other end, they give the worst marks to Mississippi (#50), West Virginia (#49), Alabama (#48), Louisiana (#47) and Texas (#46).

This research was conducted by Harris Interactive^SM for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform among a national sample of general counsel or other senior litigators in large corporations. It sought to explore how reasonable and fair the tort liability system is perceived to be by Corporate America. Broadly, the survey focused on the attitudes and perceptions of the state liability systems in the following areas:

• Tort and Contract Litigation
• Treatment of Class Action Suits
• Punitive Damages
• Timeliness of Summary Judgement/Dismissal
• Discovery
• Scientific and Technical Evidence
• Judges’ Impartiality
• Judges’ Competence
• Juries’ Predictability
• Juries’ Fairness

The interviews were conducted by telephone among a nationwide sample of senior attorneys at companies with annual revenues of at least $100 million. Of this sample, 44% of respondents were from companies with annual revenues of $1 billion and over. Interviews averaging 15 minutes in length were conducted with a total of 824 respondents and took place between November 7 and December 11, 2001. The sample was segmented into two main groups. Of the 824 respondents, 86 were from insurance companies with the remaining 738 interviews being conducted among public corporations.

The differences between states are not trivial. Overall, 86% of all the lawyers surveyed gave Delaware an "A" or "B" rating on the ten criteria, compared to 1% who did so for Mississippi. Indeed, 73% gave Mississippi a "D" or "F" rating.

There was also a considerable amount of consistency across all ten criteria. Delaware is #1 on all ten. Mississippi is the worst on all criteria except treatment of class action suits, on which it was not rated because it doesn’t have them. Virginia and Washington are in the top five for six of the criteria. West Virginia and Alabama are in the lowest five for all ten criteria.

Apart from the rating and ranking of the fifty states, other key findings were:

• Looking broadly at America as a whole, a 57% majority of the senior corporate lawyers rate the state court systems negatively and 39% rate them positively overall in terms of their fairness and reasonableness. Positive scores include 2% who rate them as excellent and 37% who rate them as pretty good. Negative scores include 14% who rate them as poor and 43% who rate them as only fair.
  
• More than three quarters of these lawyers (78%) believe that the litigation environment in different states could affect important decisions by their corporations such as where to locate or do business.

There is some other evidence that this is not just a hypothetical question. According to Marty Regalia, the U.S. Chamber’s economist, the average economic growth rate from 1995 to 1999 was substantially higher among the top ten states (4.8%) than in the bottom ten states (3.8%).

To access the 98-page report with all the results of this survey, please visit http://www.litigationfairness.org.

PERCEPTIONS OF STATE COURT LIABILITY SYSTEMS IN GENERAL

"Overall, how would you describe the fairness and reasonableness of state court liability systems in America – excellent, pretty good, only fair or poor?"

Base: All adults

TABLE 2

OVERALL RANKING OF STATE LIABILITY SYSTEMS

Based on their rating of all 10 criteria

TABLE 3

SUMMARY OF TOP/BOTTOM 5 STATES BY TEN CRITERIA

SUMMARY OF TOP/BOTTOM 5 STATES BY KEY ELEMENTS

CAN STATE LITIGATION ENVIRONMENT AFFECT IMPORTANT BUSINESS DECISIONS SUCH AS WHERE TO LOCATE OR DO BUSINESS?

"Could it ever happen that the environment in a state could affect an important business decision at your company, such as where to locate or do business?"

This research was conducted for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform. The interviews were conducted by telephone among a nationwide sample of senior attorneys at companies with annual revenues of at least $100 million between November 7 through December 11, 2001.

In theory, with a probability sample of this size, one can say with 95 percent certainty that the results have a statistical precision of plus or minus 3 percentage points of what they would be if the entire adult population had been polled with complete accuracy. Unfortunately, there are several other possible sources of error in all polls or surveys that are probably more serious than theoretical calculations of sampling error. They include refusals to be interviewed (non-response), question wording and question order, interviewer bias. It is impossible to quantify the errors that may result from these factors.

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