A study by Pacific Research Institute ranks Oklahoma's tort system 38th among the states.

Dick Rush, president and CEO of The State Chamber, termed the ranking a "wake-up call" for Oklahoma.

"A fair, stable and predictable legal environment is critical to a state's ability to attract investment, draw new business and generate new jobs," Rush said.

Officials with the PRI describe it as a "free-market think tank." It is also a partner in the American Justice Partnership, a coalition of organizations pushing for tort reform.

"This tort liability index measures which states have high tort costs and which have enacted reforms to better position themselves for future economic growth," said Dan Pero, AJP president.

Co-author Lawrence McQuillan said that using data from each state, the study can predict winners and losers in the race for jobs and investment.

"For states that don't institute reforms, a metric factored into the ranking, the writing is on the wall," he said.

The study concluded that a state can expect per capita gross state product to increase by 0.75 percent for each 10-percent improvement in the state's ranking.

To develop this factor, researchers used the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform's "State Liability Systems Ranking Study" to rank states according to how their tort systems are perceived by attorneys for large companies.

Factors included civil cases per 100,000 population, monetary tort award figures, damage caps and reforms, among others.

Texas came in at the top of states that were ranked on 39 factors,Vermont last.

Filling out the top five were Colorado, North Dakota, Ohio and Michigan. With Vermont at the bottom were Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

Ranking 38th overall, Oklahoma ranked 23rd for damage caps, 30th for its substantive tort laws, 15th for procedural and structural rules relating to tort law, 37th for monetary tort losses and 46th for tort system "threats."

In the study, "threats" included attorneys per dollar of gross state product, civil cases per 100,000 residents and the presence of "judicial hellholes."

The latter is an American Tort Reform Association term for jurisdictions deemed favorable to lawsuit plaintiffs for a variety of reasons.

On Tuesday, senators voted to send Senate Bill 1657, a tort reform measure, to a joint conference committee for final drafting. Many complex or controversial bills are sent to conference, from which not all of them emerge.

Officials with the Oklahoma Trial Lawyers Association were not immediately available for comment on the study.