STATE CHAMBER, OTHERS TO PUSH FOR REFORM IN CIVIL JUSTICE

Vice President Dan Mehan of the Missouri Chamber of Commerce called, during a visit to Cape Girardeau last week, for much-needed reforms in Missouri's civil justice system. Specifically, Mehan urged reform in an area of the law called venue, having to do with what lawyers call "forum shopping." The chamber is joining with other business groups to form the Civil Justice Reform Coalition to push for changes.

Venue is that part of the law governing within what jurisdiction it is proper, convenient and lawful to file a lawsuit. The notion of "forum shopping" has to do with the tendency of lawyers for plaintiffs (the aggrieved party bringing the suit) to "shop" for the most favorable venue to stalk their prey, usually large corporate defendants. Venue law has obvious implications for all Missourians. If venue rules are lopsidedly in favor of the party filing suit, we all end up paying, one way or another, the huge verdicts.

In Missouri the favorable venues for plaintiff lawyers are our two largest metropolitan areas: the City of St. Louis and Jackson County (Kansas City). According to a Supreme Court judge quoted in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch last fall, jury awards in the city of St. Louis are up to 10 times more generous than awards for identical cases in almost any of the rest of Missouri's 113 other counties, except for Jackson County, which is similarly generous.

A Post-Dispatch study bears this out, pointing to hundreds of lawsuits filed in the city that have little or no connection either to St. Louis or even Missouri, except for the fact that the corporate defendant has an office there. Witnesses, parties to the suit and lawyers may be from Omaha or Little Rock, but the generous juries draw plaintiffs' lawyers like magnets to St. Louis, and there is literally nothing corporate defendants can do about it.

Mehan's proposal is a comprehensive venue statute first proposed last year. The bill would place in Missouri statutes the doctrine of "forum non conveniens," which would restore balance in Missouri venue law according to the following criteria: where the accident happened, the location of witnesses, the residences of parties to the suit, the burden placed upon the court and the potential availability of another venue.

Trial attorneys in the plaintiffs bar fought these bills last year, and versions of them died in both the House and Senate judiciary committees. Business groups should get involved with this new coalition. Here's hoping that 1997 will see better luck for civil justice reform in Missouri.