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March
27, 2007
— America’s out-of-control legal
system imposes a staggering economic cost of over $865 billion
every year according to a new scholarly study released today by
the
Pacific Research Institute
(PRI), a free-market think tank based in San Francisco,
California. This figure is 27 times more than the federal
government spends on homeland security, 30 times what the
National Institutes for Health dedicate to finding cures for
deadly diseases, and 13 times the amount the Department of
Education spends to help educate America’s children.
The authors of Jackpot Justice: The True
Cost of America’s Tort System calculated that the
nation’s tort system imposes a yearly “tort tax” of $9,827 for a
family of four and raises health care spending in the U.S. by
$124 billion.
The new PRI study provides the most comprehensive
examination ever of U.S. tort costs. According to the study’s
lead author, Dr. Lawrence J. McQuillan, unlike previous studies,
Jackpot Justice calculates both the direct and
indirect costs of America’s legal system.
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