Ralph Cook on the PRI "Study" that claims tort costs are pushing a trillion bucks a year

Ralph Cook wrote a letter to the editor in which he criticizes the propaganda  study issued by the Pacific Research Institute:

The $865 billion figure PRI advertises contains a long list of costs not at all associated with the civil justice system. For example, the Tillinghast study which PRI calls the "gold standard" and bases much of its study on, says tort costs in the United States are around $279 billion. Business Week, one of the corporate community's most trusted publications, said Tillinghast's total included "everything from payouts for fender-benders to the salaries of insurance CEOs," and is "a wild exaggeration." With Tillinghast's grossly exaggerated total tort costs of $279 billion, PRI's total, largely based on and more than three times Tillinghast's, is even more far-fetched.

Source: montgomeryadvertiser.com ::  Inflated figure undercuts premise

The "reform" movement has a history of relying on made-up data.  Regular readers will recall Professor Fink's take on another bogus study.

Technorati tags: PRI, Pacific Research Institute, propaganda, Ralph Cook, Tillinghast, tort tax, tort reform