Tort claims do not clog our courts, they are only a small fraction of civil complaints. Of the 19.7 million civil cases filed in 1992, about one million were tort cases. NCSC also found that the number of tort filings has essentially remained constant over the past decade. The real increase in litigation over the past few years has been in businesses suing each other over contracts. For example, The Wall Street Journal reported that businesses suing each other comprised nearly half of all federal cases filed between 1985 and 1991.
Punitive damages are rare.
Punitive damages are awarded in less than five percent of civil jury verdicts, according to a 1990 American Bar Foundation study of 25,000 jury verdicts in 11 states over a four-year period. Between 1965 and 1990, there were only 355 such awards in products liability cases, according to a study by law professor Michael Rustad of Suffolk University. Product liability cases account for only four percent of all tort cases in state courts and the costs of product liability law are slight. The federal General Accounting Office found that liability insurance costs large businesses about six-tenths of one percent of annual gross receipts and costs small businesses about one percent. The National Insurance Consumer Organization found that liability insurance premiums in 1991 were equal to only fourteen one-hundredths of one percent of product retail sales.