A tort reform group whose signature move is labeling purportedly pro-plaintiff judicial vicinages “hellholes” each year has given New Jersey a good roasting, though some heavenly praise was sprinkled in.

The American Tort Reform Association's 2017-18 “Judicial Hellholes” report, issued Tuesday, reaches even further back than Dante's “Inferno” in introducing New Jersey, which ranked No. 6 on the list: “In Roman mythology, Janus was a two-faced god that controlled transitions and time, at once looking forward while also reflecting on the past. In more modern times Janus's two faces came to symbolize a duplicitous nature, and the past year in New Jersey's courts might fairly be described as a Janus moment, including transitions and mixed messages.”

ATRA first roasted New Jersey for what it called “a lax approach to expert testimony.” The organization previously praised Atlantic County Superior Court Judge Nelson Johnson for his exclusion of expert testimony from the Accutane litigation, leading to the dismissal of 2,000 individual cases, but “virtually all of the dismissed cases were revived this summer when the Appellate Division overturned Judge Johnson's decision,” ATRA said, criticizing the very continued existence of the litigation because of what it says is a lack of evidence linking Accutane to Crohn's disease.

ATRA also pointed to a “quite candid” moment from Justice Barry Albin in 2016 during oral argument in an Accutane case that yielded a $25 million verdict, vacated but ultimately reinstated by the high court earlier this year. Application of the state's evidentiary and court rules “'attracts plaintiffs here,'” Albin noted during the arguments, the report says.

The report also labels New Jersey “actively anti-arbitration” for 2017 based largely on the Appellate Division's voiding of Best Buy's employee arbitration clause in Dugan v. Best Buy last August.

For all its criticisms, ATRA said New Jersey courts deserve some credit when it comes to litigation stemming from the Truth-in-Consumer Contract, Warranty and Notice Act because, it said, they “appropriately tapped the brakes on these out-of-control and often preposterous lawsuits.” Specifically, the organization said the state Supreme Court's ruling in the combined Dugan v. TGI Fridays and Bozzi v. OSI Restaurant Partners “finally put some meaningful and much-needed limits on TCCWNA litigation.”

The report urged New Jersey courts to “embrace their Janus moment” and “choose a new path toward a fairer, more evenhanded civil justice system,” and urged incoming Gov. Phil Murphy to “firmly resist political pressure from the plaintiffs' bar, which will surely lobby him to nominate, especially to the high court, more plaintiff-friendly, liability-expanding jurists[.]”

The New Jersey Association for Justice, the state's principle plaintiff bar group, issued a statement in response to ATRA, accusing it of “
trying to block the access of injured consumers to the courts.”

“The Judicial Hellhole report has been refuted and debunked in the past,” said NJAJ President Eric Kahn, of Javerbaum Wurgaft Hicks Kahn Wikstrom & Sinins. “The New York Times has found that past versions of the report had 'no apparent methodology' and that when the question is asked whether the report makes sense the answer was that it 'often falls short.'”

Tuesday's report “is no different” and “comes from large corporations and other moneyed interests that often harm consumers, patients and others and then complain. They do not like being caught and being held accountable,” he added.

Kahn also pointed to what he called an “overall pattern across the country to try to protect giant corporations by denying access to the courts for those with legitimate claims.”

Washington, D.C.-based ATRA was founded in 1997 and has been offering up “Judicial Hellholes” reports since 2002. Atlantic County Superior Court has made the list in years past, in connection with the Accutane litigation.

Here's a look at some of the eight venues that made the list:

Credit: ATRA

Florida

According to the report, the Florida Supreme Court's medical malpractice cases appeared to disregard the intent of the state's legislature. The first decision granted patients access to medical records. Two other decisions pushed back against limits on attorney fees and damages. The court also upheld the privacy rights of patients.

Fort Lauderdale plaintiffs lawyer Scott Schlesinger chastised the report as “fiction” and “meaningless.” He said it's harder than ever for plaintiffs to get compensated for malpractice committed by their doctors.

“Medical care is pretty much worse than it's ever been and more dangerous than ever, but nobody wants to be held accountable,” said Schlesinger, of Schlesinger Law Offices. “The powers that be are able to ram through special-interest legislation, and it's the neutral courts that say, wait, this is unfair, or unconstitutional or unlawful legislation.”

The report also noted recent crackdowns on insurance fraud among Florida's plaintiffs bar, some of which have landed plea agreements. And it referenced $9.2 million in sanctions against two Jacksonville plaintiffs firms for “unprofessional conduct” in tobacco cases.

“Our state has a vibrant justice system that is working to keep Floridians safe and deter insurance companies and big corporations from taking advantage of people and small businesses,” wrote Florida Justice Association spokesman Ryan Banfill. “That's good for consumers and for business, too.”

California

The report cited California's Private Attorneys General Act and public nuisance law as among the reasons the state ranked No. 2. In particular, the report mentioned an appeals court decision upholding liability in a $1.15 billion lead paint judgment.

The report acknowledged some defense wins in California, both involving alleged links between Johnson & Johnson's baby powder and ovarian cancer and mesothelioma. And it praised the U.S. Supreme Court's reversal of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit's 2016 ruling in Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Superior Court.

“The good news is the U.S. Supreme Court in June reversed a California high court decision that we criticized in last year's report,” ATRA President Sherman Joyce said. “Had it been allowed to stand, California's courthouse doors would have been thrown open even wider to out-of-state plaintiffs suing out-of-state defendants over alleged out-of-state injuries.”

New York

In New York, the report focused on the city's asbestos docket, which ranked No. 4 due to a case management order issued this year that allowed claimants to pursue punitive damages. Joyce called it “a great disappointment for defendants.”

Missouri

St. Louis topped the list last year but moved to No. 3 after the governor signed legislation designed to rein in large verdicts based on what tort reformers called “junk science.” Juries in St. Louis have awarded double-digit awards against Johnson & Johnson over baby powder. The report cited those reforms, Bristol-Myers and an appeals court's reversal of a $72 million talc verdict as reasons for St. Louis to drop in rank.

Pennsylvania

The Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas ranked No. 5 due to a surge of new lawsuits and big verdicts, particularly involving pelvic mesh, antipsychotic drug Risperdal and blood thinner Xarelto. The most recent was the first Xarelto trial in Philadelphia that ended in a $27.8 million verdict on Tuesday.

Elsewhere

The report also flagged several venues to watch out for, such as Georgia, for its “growing list of outrageous verdicts.” It also chastised the Connecticut Supreme Court for upholding a $41.7 million award against a private school after a student was bit by a tick while on a class trip in China, though the judges were less than enthusiastic about their opinion. Justice Andrew McDonald wrote in a concurring opinion: “Indeed, while the damages award in the present case shocks my conscience, our existing standard does not provide a recognized basis to conclude that the trial court's conclusion to the contrary was improper.”

A tort reform group whose signature move is labeling purportedly pro-plaintiff judicial vicinages “hellholes” each year has given New Jersey a good roasting, though some heavenly praise was sprinkled in.

The American Tort Reform Association's 2017-18 “Judicial Hellholes” report, issued Tuesday, reaches even further back than Dante's “Inferno” in introducing New Jersey, which ranked No. 6 on the list: “In Roman mythology, Janus was a two-faced god that controlled transitions and time, at once looking forward while also reflecting on the past. In more modern times Janus's two faces came to symbolize a duplicitous nature, and the past year in New Jersey's courts might fairly be described as a Janus moment, including transitions and mixed messages.”

ATRA first roasted New Jersey for what it called “a lax approach to expert testimony.” The organization previously praised Atlantic County Superior Court Judge Nelson Johnson for his exclusion of expert testimony from the Accutane litigation, leading to the dismissal of 2,000 individual cases, but “virtually all of the dismissed cases were revived this summer when the Appellate Division overturned Judge Johnson's decision,” ATRA said, criticizing the very continued existence of the litigation because of what it says is a lack of evidence linking Accutane to Crohn's disease.

ATRA also pointed to a “quite candid” moment from Justice Barry Albin in 2016 during oral argument in an Accutane case that yielded a $25 million verdict, vacated but ultimately reinstated by the high court earlier this year. Application of the state's evidentiary and court rules “'attracts plaintiffs here,'” Albin noted during the arguments, the report says.

The report also labels New Jersey “actively anti-arbitration” for 2017 based largely on the Appellate Division's voiding of Best Buy's employee arbitration clause in Dugan v. Best Buy last August.

For all its criticisms, ATRA said New Jersey courts deserve some credit when it comes to litigation stemming from the Truth-in-Consumer Contract, Warranty and Notice Act because, it said, they “appropriately tapped the brakes on these out-of-control and often preposterous lawsuits.” Specifically, the organization said the state Supreme Court's ruling in the combined Dugan v. TGI Fridays and Bozzi v. OSI Restaurant Partners “finally put some meaningful and much-needed limits on TCCWNA litigation.”

The report urged New Jersey courts to “embrace their Janus moment” and “choose a new path toward a fairer, more evenhanded civil justice system,” and urged incoming Gov. Phil Murphy to “firmly resist political pressure from the plaintiffs' bar, which will surely lobby him to nominate, especially to the high court, more plaintiff-friendly, liability-expanding jurists[.]”

The New Jersey Association for Justice, the state's principle plaintiff bar group, issued a statement in response to ATRA, accusing it of “
trying to block the access of injured consumers to the courts.”

“The Judicial Hellhole report has been refuted and debunked in the past,” said NJAJ President Eric Kahn, of Javerbaum Wurgaft Hicks Kahn Wikstrom & Sinins. “The New York Times has found that past versions of the report had 'no apparent methodology' and that when the question is asked whether the report makes sense the answer was that it 'often falls short.'”

Tuesday's report “is no different” and “comes from large corporations and other moneyed interests that often harm consumers, patients and others and then complain. They do not like being caught and being held accountable,” he added.

Kahn also pointed to what he called an “overall pattern across the country to try to protect giant corporations by denying access to the courts for those with legitimate claims.”

Washington, D.C.-based ATRA was founded in 1997 and has been offering up “Judicial Hellholes” reports since 2002. Atlantic County Superior Court has made the list in years past, in connection with the Accutane litigation.

Here's a look at some of the eight venues that made the list:

Credit: ATRA

Florida

According to the report, the Florida Supreme Court's medical malpractice cases appeared to disregard the intent of the state's legislature. The first decision granted patients access to medical records. Two other decisions pushed back against limits on attorney fees and damages. The court also upheld the privacy rights of patients.

Fort Lauderdale plaintiffs lawyer Scott Schlesinger chastised the report as “fiction” and “meaningless.” He said it's harder than ever for plaintiffs to get compensated for malpractice committed by their doctors.

“Medical care is pretty much worse than it's ever been and more dangerous than ever, but nobody wants to be held accountable,” said Schlesinger, of Schlesinger Law Offices. “The powers that be are able to ram through special-interest legislation, and it's the neutral courts that say, wait, this is unfair, or unconstitutional or unlawful legislation.”

The report also noted recent crackdowns on insurance fraud among Florida's plaintiffs bar, some of which have landed plea agreements. And it referenced $9.2 million in sanctions against two Jacksonville plaintiffs firms for “unprofessional conduct” in tobacco cases.

“Our state has a vibrant justice system that is working to keep Floridians safe and deter insurance companies and big corporations from taking advantage of people and small businesses,” wrote Florida Justice Association spokesman Ryan Banfill. “That's good for consumers and for business, too.”

California

The report cited California's Private Attorneys General Act and public nuisance law as among the reasons the state ranked No. 2. In particular, the report mentioned an appeals court decision upholding liability in a $1.15 billion lead paint judgment.

The report acknowledged some defense wins in California, both involving alleged links between Johnson & Johnson's baby powder and ovarian cancer and mesothelioma. And it praised the U.S. Supreme Court's reversal of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit's 2016 ruling in Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Superior Court.

“The good news is the U.S. Supreme Court in June reversed a California high court decision that we criticized in last year's report,” ATRA President Sherman Joyce said. “Had it been allowed to stand, California's courthouse doors would have been thrown open even wider to out-of-state plaintiffs suing out-of-state defendants over alleged out-of-state injuries.”

New York

In New York, the report focused on the city's asbestos docket, which ranked No. 4 due to a case management order issued this year that allowed claimants to pursue punitive damages. Joyce called it “a great disappointment for defendants.”

Missouri

St. Louis topped the list last year but moved to No. 3 after the governor signed legislation designed to rein in large verdicts based on what tort reformers called “junk science.” Juries in St. Louis have awarded double-digit awards against Johnson & Johnson over baby powder. The report cited those reforms, Bristol-Myers and an appeals court's reversal of a $72 million talc verdict as reasons for St. Louis to drop in rank.

Pennsylvania

The Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas ranked No. 5 due to a surge of new lawsuits and big verdicts, particularly involving pelvic mesh, antipsychotic drug Risperdal and blood thinner Xarelto. The most recent was the first Xarelto trial in Philadelphia that ended in a $27.8 million verdict on Tuesday.

Elsewhere

The report also flagged several venues to watch out for, such as Georgia, for its “growing list of outrageous verdicts.” It also chastised the Connecticut Supreme Court for upholding a $41.7 million award against a private school after a student was bit by a tick while on a class trip in China, though the judges were less than enthusiastic about their opinion. Justice Andrew McDonald wrote in a concurring opinion: “Indeed, while the damages award in the present case shocks my conscience, our existing standard does not provide a recognized basis to conclude that the trial court's conclusion to the contrary was improper.”