How the Legal Minefield Suffocates the US Economy
Commentary
My local running club is short of coaches. It’s unwilling to pay coaches, though, since remuneration would formalize coaching relationships and make the club liable to lawsuits over potential injuries.
The absurdity of this anecdote—a harmless club fearful of liability insurance—demonstrates the all-encompassing minefield of lawsuits suffocating even the most granular and benign elements of the U.S. economy. Tort law has gone from being a legitimate protection against wrongdoers to a costly tool for social engineering and a racket for the legal profession.
The situation has reached a boiling point, after heating up steadily for three decades. As retailers stand back to avoid lawsuits amid a shoplifting epidemic, the need for tort reform is glaring.
On the one hand, the scope of tort-law application has broadened to levels never seen before. Some cases have become nakedly political and an end run around the…
