09/ 26/ 2007
This summer influential state supreme courts sided with NFIB's Legal Foundation on key issues important to small-business owners. These legal wins are significant victories and prove that judges are considering small-business interests when deliberating and deciding key cases.
The California Supreme Court upheld a defendant's right to bring a malicious prosecution action against lawyers who are actively involved in representing a frivolous claim. The court's decision reiterated the strong public-policy preference against frivolous lawsuits.
In Michigan, the state's supreme court also handed down a critical tort-reform decision. The court ruled that third-party liability in asbestos cases cannot be extended to a business when the plaintiff has never been on or near the defendant's property. In this case, a stepdaughter of a former independent contractor claimed the business was liable for the illness she developed from exposure to her stepfather's clothes. The court rejected this claim due to the lack of relationship between the business and the stepdaughter.
NFIB's Legal Foundation is also getting involved in a case fighting New York's infamous "scaffold laws," which create excessive liabilities for businesses, especially firms in the construction industry. Insurance companies have effectively stopped offering policies to construction companies due to these laws. NFIB is urging the court to find these laws unconstitutional because they deny construction-firm owners equal protection under the law.
