U.S. Chamber vs. W.Va.

The latest battle in the ongoing war over lawsuits in West Virginia pits the U.S. Chamber of Commerce against its usual foes _ the state's trial lawyer _ as well as some unexpected opponents.

As The Associated Press reports, The Charleston Regional Chamber of Commerce and a bipartisan group of Northern Panhandle state senators are among those critical of the recent U.S. Chamber ad campaign targeting the Mountain State's legal climate.

(As I reported earlier for AP, the Wheeling Area Chamber of Commerce lodged a similar complaint with its national counterpart over the campaign.)

These local complaints are somewhat buoyed by a recent FactCheck.org analysis that labels as "false" and "misleading" a key component of the U.S. Chamber ad campaign.

While not necessarily disagreeing with the U.S. Chamber's critique of the state's judicial system, the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce has adopted a different approach: seeking compromises with the trial bar.

The recently redubbed trial lawyers' association remains the U.S. Chamber's leading foe on the issue. Member Scott Segal recently exhorted the State Bar's governing board to take a stand, as AP reports.

A major hurdle in this debate has been the lack of statistics that sufficiently map the terrain of West Virginia's civil court system. In the initial AP story, I cited figures showing that "the number of general civil filings began declining in 2004 and has dropped by more than 6 percent from five years ago. The nonpartisan National Center for State Courts, meanwhile, puts West Virginia's civil filings on par with its population, ranking both at 38th nationwide in its most recent report."

The May 11 FactCheck analysis, meanwhile, said that the U.S. Chamber ignored key findings in the study that it misstates in the ad campaign:

"U.S. tort costs grew by 0.5 % in 2005. This was much lower than the growth rate of 5.7 % in 2004, and was the smallest increase in tort costs since 1997...The 0.5 percent rate of growth in tort costs in 2005 was less than overall economic growth of 6.3 percent. Since 1950, growth in tort costs has exceeded growth in GDP by an average of 2 to 3 percentage points."

The U.S. Chamber stands by its ad, and plans to follow up on its West Virginia campaign today with a survey of small business owners.