City of St. Louis falls to 5th on the Judicial Hellhole list with Madison and St. Clair Counties, Illinois close behind ranking 7th.

ABSTRACT: City of St. Louis has seen a steady decline on the judicial hellhole rankings with modest reforms but the Illinois counties of Madison and St. Clair remain hotspots for asbestos litigation and "no-injury" BIPA lawsuits according to the 2019/2020 American Tort Reform Foundation Judicial Hellholes Report.

Thanks to “junk science,” the “Show-Me-Your-Lawsuit” state remains within the top 10 of judicial hellholes throughout the country. St. Louis is home to the largest talc verdict to date thanks to a July 2018 City of St. Louis verdict awarding $550 million in actual damages and $4.14 billion in punitive damages to a group of 22 plaintiffs. Not only are there forum shopping concerns with regards to the talc litigation, there is concern that St. Louis City judges allow plaintiffs’ lawyers to introduce “junk science” as evidence. Specifically, plaintiffs’ experts have been allowed to tell jurors that talcum powder causes ovarian cancer, even though research is mixed and biased as to increased risk, if any, with the use of talcum powder. Nonetheless, the City of St. Louis continues to allow this “junk science” to be heard in their courtrooms, which can result in big verdicts. 

The Missouri legislature, however, has taken steps toward addressing the plaintiff-friendly forum, resulting in the City of St. Louis seeing a decline from 4th to 5th in the judicial hellhole rankings this year. But it has a long way to go, as do Madison and St. Clair Counties in Illinois.

In Madison and St. Clair Counties, the plaintiffs’ bar continues to push pro-plaintiff agendas. For example, pro-plaintiff legislation eliminating the statute of repose for asbestos-related occupational disease has been passed, along with legislation which essentially eliminates the power of special interrogatories.  The ATRF Report also puts the blame for these judicial hellholes on the Illinois Supreme Court.  

The American Tort Reform Foundation (“ATRF”) Report attributes “no-injury” lawsuits as overburdening Illinois businesses, and the Illinois Supreme Court helped open those floodgates when it issued its decision in Rosenbach v. Six Flags Entertainment, 2019 IL 123186. In Rosenbach, the court found that the plaintiff need not have suffered actual harm to maintain and win a lawsuit filed under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”), 740 Ill. Comp. Stat. 14 (2008). Since this decision, the ATRF Report indicates that more than 250 lawsuits have been filed with BIPA at the forefront of the issues in those suits, making businesses vulnerable to massive potential liability in the State of Illinois.

Moreover, according to the ATRF Report, Madison and St. Clair Counties continue to remain the preferred jurisdiction in the United States for plaintiffs’ lawyers to file asbestos lawsuits. The Report further notes that the Gori Law Firm (formerly known as Gori, Julian & Associates, P.C.), “one of the top asbestos filers in the nation,” was able to “stack” [sic] the deck higher when Barry Julian, co-founding partner of Gori Julian, was appointed to the Madison County bench in January 2019. The ATRF Report claims the “plaintiff-friendly reputation, low evidentiary standards, and judges’ willingness to allow meritless claims to survive” make Madison and St. Clair Counties a flocking ground for asbestos litigation. 

Until the legislature in both Missouri and Illinois decide to create meaningful reforms, these three counties are likely to continue to rank high on ATRF Report’s Judicial Hellholes list.