It's a nice place, but you wouldn't want to be sued there.
 

The tort bar's travelling circus has long searched for the most permissive legal venues, and one destination of choice is Philadelphia. The Pennsylvania legislature is now aiming to change that by limiting venue-shopping for personal injury cases.

A bill before the state's house Judiciary Committee would offset the current advantage for plaintiffs by changing the courts' jurisdiction rules. While plaintiffs can currently parachute into Philadelphia from anywhere in the state, the new plan would allow Pennsylvania's local courts to hear personal injury cases only when the plaintiff is a resident, a corporation is locally headquartered, or the incident occurred in the district.

That's how the court system was designed to work, until the plaintiffs bar got busy. The Philadelphia Complex Litigation Center, a state courthouse designed specifically to handle many of the behemoth mass tort cases, has advertised its intention to attract "business away from other courts." The result has been a jackpot of pharmaceutical and other cases, from the asbestos mass tort of the 1990s to the diet drug bonanzas of 1998-2004.

Philadelphia plaintiffs are less likely to settle than plaintiffs elsewhere and show a marked preference for jury trials, according to a report for the International Center for Law and Economics by Joshua Wright based on data from Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts. Philadelphia juries find in favor of plaintiffs more often than non-Philly juries—"by as much as 23.7% in absolute terms in 2005." Verdicts are routinely north of $1 million, and last year the city was named America's number one judicial hellhole in the annual ranking by the American Tort Reform Foundation.

Slowly, the political system has been fighting back. In 2002, a reform took on forum shopping for medical malpractice claims, which were raising insurance rates for small-town doctors who found themselves sued in Philadelphia.

Another reform in June of this year restricted joint and several liability, which had allowed plaintiffs to collect 100% of their award from any defendant, even those minimally liable. The provision has been a major deterrent to business investment in a state that could use more jobs. The reform restricts companies that are less than 60% liable in a case with multiple defendants to covering only their share of the verdict.

The plaintiffs bar will no doubt flood the Pennsylvania legislature with cash to defeat the bill. Republican state senate Judiciary Chairman Stewart Greenleaf tried to stop the joint and several liability reform, and he's the trial bar hope on this one too. Philadelphians deserve their day in court, but not everyone in the state deserves a day in Philadelphia's courts.