In a new study, appropriately entitled “Jackpot Justice: The True Cost of America’s Tort System, The American Tort Reform Association (ATRA) finds that the indirect costs associated with tort litigation in America “strengthens our view that more must be done to make our system of civil justice truly fair and equitable for all.”

And guess where ATRA says is the second worst “judicial hellhole” in the nation?

That’s right – gold ole South Florida.

The study, produced by the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), a market-oriented think tank based in San Francisco, is an effort to tally the indirect costs of tort litigation – a monumental $865 billion annually. It incorporates information and data from many previously published studies by top economists and scholars.

The study says that South Florida has a well-earned reputation for high awards, improper evidentiary rulings, class actions, asbestos cases, and medical malpractice payouts.

This year Florida’s highest court threw out a $145 billion award against the tobacco industry, which included the largest punitive damage award in American history. South Florida is also an area where a lawyer once considered the "King of Torts" is accused of overcharging his clients and misappropriating $13.5 million in settlements to support his waterfront mansion, opulent lifestyle, and production of a series "B" movies. Appellate courts have reversed area trial courts for inappropriately certifying class actions, allowing people who are not injured to sue, and permitting junk science.

Companies that injure employees or the public through negligence or irresponsible and intentional acts should expect to make restitution. Our courts are there for those who have suffered real injuries. And what are causing major product liability cases are poorly designed and marketed products and/or services, say the lawyers.

At the end of the day, the lawyers say, the average citizen has only two systems of protections -- the tort system, which allows you to sue companies for damages caused by dangerous doctors and/or caused by equally dangerous and defective products or services.

Or the regulatory system set up by government that prohibits companies from endangering people (or the environment) and punishes them if the law isn’t followed.

Tort system critics say that inherently the tort system suffers from being vulnerable to general manipulation, and subject to a jury’s misunderstanding of scientific evidence. Critics also argue that jury decisions are also and often determined as much by emotion as by scientific fact.

Critics say the other protector – the government -- and government’s regulatory system is subject to the will and whim of politics – changing with administration change, and either made weaker or stronger in certain areas – and then changing again with new administrations.

And the real cynics say that too many lawyers use the threat of litigation as leverage to milk cash out of companies – even to the point of manufacturing evidence, and with judges (who used to be lawyers) not throwing out cases that shouldn’t have been brought in the first place – which creates settlements -- everyone gets a cut, and everyone goes home paid, if not happy.

This leaves our legal system as little more than a lottery, and having nothing to do with truth, justice or honor.

Beyond the moral question, the costs taxpayers and consumers pay directly to maintain courts, lawyers’ fees and damage awards are rendered virtually irrelevant by the indirect costs for such things as lost jobs and retirement savings, unnecessary deaths due to health care inaccessibility, lower investments in research and development, and a considerably lesser degree of economic competitiveness.

And we hypocritically tell our children not to lie – when the adults foster, maintain and otherwise promote this big lie of truth justice….and indeed, what’s become the American way --- hoping to strike it rich through buying a ticket in the US legal lottery system.