Tort litigation plays an important social role by providing compensation for injuries caused by wrongful conduct. However, if left unchecked, excessive tort litigation can cause more harm than good. While businesses can be negatively impacted by litigation, the litigation itself presents a business opportunity worth considering. Snapshot of Tort Litigation in the U.S. A report published by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform claims that the tort system in the United States – comprising both common law and statutory claims – amounted to 2.3 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), equivalent to $429 billion. (It should be noted that U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s

For well over a century, the Western world, led in large part by the United States’ unyielding economic development in the post-war 20th century, has ascribed to the ideals of a free market economy, which fosters entrepreneurial behavior and calculated risk-taking. Both features are essential, it is argued, to economic prosperity. However, the free market cannot operate in a vacuum, and legislators have rightly recognized that even a liberal system which places an emphasis on private ventures and self-regulation needs to be tempered with an overarching framework of rules. Up until very recently, it could be said that this framework of rules – which included, for instance, the pivotal Securit