An Analysis of Statutory Development: The Correlates of State Activity in Product Liability Legislation

Abstract

In the last few years legal scholars and politicians have been concerned with what many have referred to as the “liability crisis”. While there is certainly no consensus involving precisely how serious the problem indeed, some argue that there is no crisis ‐there is some evidence that the frequency and size of jury awards in some types of personal injury cases have changed since the 1970s. In response to this evidence virtually every state has considered legislation that would limit the frequency or size of such awards and would modify related judicial processes. Although the final status of many of these “tort reforms” is still uncertain, bills related to punitive damages and other dimensions of tort Iiability have been introduced in and passed by one or more houses in many state legislatures. This paper examines this legislative activity and focus on bills that have passed in one or more state legislative houses in the 1986–88 time period. Using standard multivariate statistical techniques, it examines the relationship between this legislative activity and dimensions of state politics and culture. The research indicates that state legislative activity in the area of tort reform results from a rather complex mix of factors. It is a function of political and social‐economic attributes, as well as features of the states’ legal and judicial systems.