NC Receives National Attention for Balanced Civil Liability Reforms

NC Chamber’s Position: The North Carolina Chamber will work to identify opportunities to improve our state’s legal climate. Our legal system must be fair and balanced for all parties and should not encourage unnecessary litigation that adds costs and prevents employers from creating jobs.

A state’s legal climate can be a major inducement or a major deterrent to business investment, growth and job creation. It is one factor among several key ones that businesses consider when making decisions about where to expand existing operations or locate new facilities. Specifically companies are looking for fairness and predictability. 

Our legal climate and litigation costs also impact competitiveness – nationally and internationally. North Carolina businesses face growing competition against international competitors that have much lower litigation costs. This is a disadvantage for our businesses in a fiercely competitive global economy. 

For North Carolina businesses to invest and create jobs, North Carolina’s civil justice system must be rational, fair and predictable. Employers must be free to innovate and pursue market opportunities without fear of unreasonable exposure to costly lawsuits, while truly injured parties must have full recourse to appropriate measures of justice. 

2011 Legislative Victories:

BILL SUMMARY	PRO-BIZ OR NO-BIZ	OUTCOME
S33: Medical Liability Reform Worked with key allies in the business and medical community to promote medical liability reform to increase our state’s competitiveness for jobs and commerce by reducing medical and legal costs, increasing access to care and improving our state health policy.	List of more supporting organizations	PASSED
H542: Tort Reform for Citizens and Businesses With a broad coalition of pro-jobs allies, pushed balanced changes to NC’s civil liability system to provide predictability and promote job creation by encouraging settlements and deterring costly frivolous lawsuits.	Bill summary & more supporting organizations	PASSED

2010 Wins:

Protected NC’s Legal Climate, Preserved Balance & Fairness in Lawsuit Laws (House Bill 813): 
One of our top priorities during the 2010 legislative session was protecting NC’s legal climate from a movement by plaintiffs’ lawyers to change the state’s “lawsuit laws” in ways that favor those who sue. Our goal was to make sure that this legislation did not pass unless it was changed to maintain a fair and balanced legal system.  Thanks to the hard work of a strong Chamber-led coalition of businesses, health care organizations, local chambers and local governments, this legislation was not heard by the Senate before the session ended.  Our “Coalition to protect NC’s Legal Climate” put forward a very fair compromise proposal that the plaintiffs’ bar was unwilling to accept so their bill did not advance. Read the Coalition’s final proposal.