That’s the name of a new report just released by the Pacific Research Institute that puts a firm cost on America’s broken tort system. Check out these highlights from the report:

• The $865 billion annual cost of America’s tort system is equivalent to the total yearly sales of the entire U.S. restaurant industry.
• More than 51,000 U.S. jobs have been lost due to asbestos-related bankruptcies alone. Employees at these bankrupted companies have lost $559 million in pension benefits.
• Lawsuits against American corporations generate an annual loss of $684 billion in shareholder value. Who are American shareholders? Not just Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. 50% of all US shareholders are ordinary individuals.
• If you assume U.S. costs should be in line with other industrialized countries, the authors project that America wastes $589 billion per year on excessive social tort costs, equivalent to the total annual output of Illinois.
• The practice of “defensive medicine” by litigation-fearing physicians increases American health care costs by $124 billion per year and adds 3.4 million Americans to the rolls of the uninsured.

If that don’t make your head spin, nothing will.

Read the whole thing.

HT: The American Justice Partnership.