Communications & Research
Stay current on the civil justice debate in California and the rest of the nation. View news stories, press releases, reports, and see how trial
lawyers are spending their money to influence legislators.
Latest CJAC Newsroom Updates
May 7, 2013
SACRAMENTO – Governor Jerry Brown proposed reforms to Proposition 65 today, an initiative approved in 1986 that requires businesses to warn the public of exposure to toxic substances and which the Brown Administration says “has been abused by some unscrupulous lawyers driven by profit rather than public health.”
Mar 27, 2013
How many times per day do you think you see the warning that a product or facility “contains chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm”?
Mar 13, 2013
SACRAMENTO - The Civil Justice Association of California (CJAC), California Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse (CALA), and victims of abusive Proposition 65 lawsuits convened at the State Capitol today to announce their support for AB 227, authored by Assemblymember Mike Gatto (D-Burbank).
Jan 29, 2013
A study published in Health Affairs found that the average physician spends 50.7 months—nearly 11 percent—of an assumed forty-year career with an unresolved, open malpractice claim.
Dec 21, 2012
Recently, California received the dubious distinction of being named the No. 1 "judicial hellhole" in America, just the latest of many reports released in recent years showing the state's legal system ranked at or near the bottom of the nation.
Latest CJAC Press Releases
May 7, 2013
SACRAMENTO – Governor Jerry Brown proposed reforms to Proposition 65 today, an initiative approved in 1986 that requires businesses to warn the public of exposure to toxic substances and which the Brown Administration says “has been abused by some unscrupulous lawyers driven by profit rather than public health.”
Mar 13, 2013
SACRAMENTO - The Civil Justice Association of California (CJAC), California Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse (CALA), and victims of abusive Proposition 65 lawsuits convened at the State Capitol today to announce their support for AB 227, authored by Assemblymember Mike Gatto (D-Burbank).
Dec 13, 2012
SACRAMENTO – California was named the #1 “judicial hellhole” in America today by the American Tort Reform Foundation in its 11th annual Judicial Hellholes report.
Sep 21, 2012
SACRAMENTO – Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 2274 today, legislation sponsored by the Civil Justice Association of California (CJAC) that will strengthen California's “vexatious litigant” statute.
Sep 19, 2012
SACRAMENTO – Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 1186 today, legislation that seeks to restrict disabled access lawyers by prohibiting pre-lawsuit settlement demand letters, reducing statutory damages under certain circumstances, restricting “stacked” claims from plaintiffs who allege the same violation multiple times, and increasing funding for certified access specialists, among other changes.
Recent Op-Eds
Mar 27, 2013
How many times per day do you think you see the warning that a product or facility “contains chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm”?
Dec 21, 2012
Recently, California received the dubious distinction of being named the No. 1 "judicial hellhole" in America, just the latest of many reports released in recent years showing the state's legal system ranked at or near the bottom of the nation.
Oct 25, 2012
The genetically engineered food labeling initiative on the November ballot – Proposition 37 – should give us all a case of déjà vu.
Sep 19, 2012
Going into 2012, a betting man would not have put great odds on the California Legislature passing a substantive bill this year aimed at reducing Americans with Disabilities Act lawsuits. In the last 10 years, 14 reform bills have been introduced and all failed passage.
Sep 12, 2012
There continues to be nothing but grim news when it comes to court funding in California. Over the past five years the judicial branch – which is supposed to be a co-equal branch of government - has seen a quarter of its budget slashed and is now receiving just over 2 percent of the state’s general fund.
Letters to the Editor
Jun 28, 2012
Brian Kabateck and Scott Malzahn overlook the benefits of arbitration and ignore the inherent conflict between SB 491 and the U.S. Supreme Court’s Concepcion ruling in their op-ed “SB 491: Protecting Consumers’ Right to Join Together” (June 25, 2012). Arbitration is a fair, efficient, cost-effective method of resolving disputes.
Mar 5, 2012
In response to Emily Green’s well done summary of the debate over Assembly Bill 1208 (“Courts bill would shift power but to whom?” – Feb 21st), the Civil Justice Association of California (CJAC) must emphasize a few points about this legislation.
Aug 11, 2010
In its plan to make offshore oil drilling safer Congress should delete the lawyer-driven scheme to eliminate the damage liability cap it established in 1990. Destroying the cap would inspire lawsuits that would direct millions of dollars away from people whose livelihood was disrupted by the Deepwater Horizon spill. Instead, the money would go into the pockets of plaintiffs’ lawyers. The cost risks of future drilling would increase because with no liability limit, smaller independent oil producers may find that insurance to cover accidents is unaffordable.
Mar 25, 2010
Out here in California we see fraud-convicted Mississippi asbestos lawyers (“Asbestos Turnabout,” Review & Outlook, March 18) William Guy and Thomas Brock simply guilty of bad timing and picking the wrong state to double-dip for damages.
Jan 11, 2010
Jeffrey Lowe’s column, “Tort Reform ‘Savings’ Ring Hallow” (Dec. 30, 2009) on tort reform and the federal health care proposal was remarkable — for what it left out.
Recent Reports
Jan 29, 2013
A study published in Health Affairs found that the average physician spends 50.7 months—nearly 11 percent—of an assumed forty-year career with an unresolved, open malpractice claim.
Dec 13, 2012
California was named the #1 “judicial hellhole” in America by the American Tort Reform Foundation in its 11th annual Judicial Hellholes report.
Apr 16, 2012
A report written by Chapman University Law Professor Anthony Caso examines the "bounty hunter" provision of California's Proposition 65, an initiative approved by voters in 1986.
Feb 14, 2012
A study conducted by Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers estimates that approximately $2 billion per year in unnecessary health care costs result from the practice of defensive medicine by U.S. orthopedic surgeons.
Sep 28, 2011
A new study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine highlights one troubling cause of rising healthcare costs: doctors providing more medical care than is necessary because they fear malpractice lawsuits.
Recent Research
Oct 8, 2010
Over time, many companies with significant asbestos-related liabilities have filed for bankruptcy, and payments by trusts set up by bankruptcy courts have played an increasingly important role in the compensation of asbestos-related injuries. While the role of trusts in providing compensation to asbestos claimants has grown, information about the operating procedures and activities of these trusts is not readily available in a convenient form.
Oct 20, 2008
If there was any doubt that civil liability is costing local governments big money, it was removed by a study just released by School Services of California, Inc. The respected school consulting group surveyed 650 K-12 school districts representing more than half the students in the state and found that the price tag on defending, insuring, and paying tort and other liability claims is running $80 million annually.
Apr 8, 2003
The Civil Justice Association of California (CJAC) released this study which looked at the contingency fee policies of all the state’s 58 counties related to cases where the Plaintiffs are minors.
Jan 1, 2002
In April 1998 the Civil Justice Association of California (CJAC) published A Study of Campaign Contributions to the California Judiciary, its first comprehensive examination of contributions to candidates for California’s judiciary. The study documented the source of campaign contributions to candidates running for various Superior Court seats. The original study examined four California counties (Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco) during the period of 1993 to 1996. This update to the original study examines the same four counties during the period 1997 to 2000.
During the past decade, CJAC has tracked donations from plaintiffs' lawyers through the California Secretary of State’s web site and made the results public.
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