Litigation

Governors and tort reform: How about the English Rule?

By Carter Wood

Radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt, a lawyer, broadcast Thursday from the Republican Governors Association meeting in San Diego. He asked his guests about tort reform.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels:

HH: You could adopt the English rule. You can do anything you want. What do you want to do?

MD: Well, I think the English rule is an interesting, would be an interesting next step. Indiana's got a good tort law. It's one of those reasons we are now at the top of everybody's lists of good states to do business. You will not be abused in an Indiana courtroom. And our courts have been, as I see it, faithful to their duty on their end. So we're a very positive state in this regard. But we could be better. And of course, the English rule, which I believe is the rule in most of the world, they should call ours the American rule, I think...

HH: Yeah.

MD: ...because we're the outlier, aren't we, in the way we do it?

HH: Yes.

MD: And it would be a nice improvement for any of our states.

Full post as published by Point of Law on November 19, 2010 (boomark / email).