JACKSON - The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is warning members about doing business in Mississippi, a state it says is becoming a legal magnet for negligence lawsuits and eye-popping verdicts.
The chamber - for the first time in its 90-year history - is spending $100,000 to run newspaper ad-vertisements in the state Thursday urging Mississippians to call on lawmakers to make changes to the state's "flawed legal system." One of those advertisements is included in today's Commonwealth.
Gov. Ronnie Musgrove called the pronouncement "outrageous."
It's the second national organization to target Mississippi this week because of its litigious climate. On Monday, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists identified Mississippi as one of nine states with a liability insurance crisis that threatens the availability of doctors to deliver babies.
The lawyer-dominated Mississippi Legislature rejected several tort reform bills in its three-month session that ended April 12.
"It's a sad day in America when an institution like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has no choice but to shine a spotlight on the state's legal environment," Tom Donohue, the chamber's president and chief executive, said at a news conference Wednesday in Washington.
Mississippi has gained a national reputation for multimillion-dollar verdicts and settlements in high-profile suits involving the tobacco industry, asbestos, health maintenance organizations and drug companies.
The chamber's decision to single out Mississippi prompted an outcry from the state's top elected officials.
Musgrove said news reports in recent days that Alabama-based USA Fabrics is opening a plant in Clarke County and that Mississippi's exports rose 30 percent last year are evidence the business climate is healthy.
"With all those positive things happening, the action of the U.S. Chamber is outrageous, inappropriate and irresponsible," Musgrove told The Associated Press after the business group's news conference.
"Basically what they're doing is no more than political blackmail," the governor said. "To me, the U.S. Chamber should worry about the national economy and the national recession's effect on Mississippi."
Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., met with chamber officials late last week to try to discourage such a public message.
"Mississippi's citizens, local and state elected officials and our media are conducting a very open, thought-provoking debate about tort reform," Lott said Wednesday. "I'm among many Mississippi citizens who believe tort reform is needed.
"However, I don't believe singling-out Mississippi over other states that have similar circumstances contributes to this sincere debate, and I don't appreciate the Chamber's actions today."
Mississippi House Speaker Tim Ford and Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck said this week the Legislature will hold meetings this summer to study tort reform.
Musgrove said Wednesday he'd call a special legislative session "if the leadership of the House and Senate give me any indication that meaningful, reasonable civil justice reform will be considered."
The governor questioned why the newspaper ads were running only in Mississippi if the organization was trying to send a message to businesses nationwide.
"That certainly raises the question as to what the intent behind this political campaign is," he said.
The U.S. Chamber, which says it has three million members, is no stranger to Mississippi politics. In 2000, the organization and trial lawyers squared off and spent several hundred thousand dollars on ads promoting judicial candidates in the state.
The chamber recently won a legal battle that allowed it to keep secret how much it spent on television ads for certain state Supreme Court candidates. A three-judge panel for the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month that the TV ads weren't political. Mississippi officials are appealing to the full 5th Circuit.
Donohue acknowledged that other states have similar legal woes and said the chamber planned to cite them in coming months.
He said the group started with Mississippi because its legal system was ranked the worst in America in a recent chamber-sponsored Harris Interactive survey of more than 800 corporate law firms.
Mississippi ranked last in categories such as judicial competence, jury fairness and the overall treatment of tort and contract litigation.
According to the chamber's advertisement, the highest reported jury verdict in Mississippi before 1995 was $9 million. Since then, at least 16 have topped that figure, the ad says.
It also urges citizens to "learn all you can about the fairness of judges running in this November's elections."
Trial lawyers in Mississippi consistently have said that the state's legal system works fine and that a handful of high-profile cases in recent years involving $100 million-plus resolutions isn't cause for massive tort reform.
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