Tennessee ranks 12th of the 50 states on the U.S. Tort Liability Index. The list measures the tort climate from the standpoint of the business and insurance community, so a rank of "1" is a pro-business, pro-insurance company state and a rank of "50" is that dark, dreary place inhabited by jurors who are anti-gun, anti-life, pro-child pornography, tree-hugging communists (hereinafter referred to as "liberals") and the greedy, scum-sucking trial lawyers who love and manipulate them.
North Dakota ranks first. Florida ranks fiftieth. North Carolina, Virginia, and Mississippi each have a higher rank than Tennessee; the other southern states rank lower.
In terms of "litigation risks" Tennessee has the best pro-industry ranking in the country (doesn’t that give you a warm, fuzzy feeling?).
Tennessee was one of five states earning "saint" status. What is a saint state? It is a state that has "relatively low monetary tort losses and/or few litigation risks and relatively strong tort rules on the books. These states are well positioned to contain their tort liability costs in the future if the rules are implemented as written."
Now, one might expect that the nursing home industry would ask for the withdrawl of the pending legislation to limit the responsibility of nursing homes after they kill or injure their residents now that it has learned that Tennessee is ranked in the top quarter as a pro-defendant state.
Yea, right.