Stories of reckless lawyers and greedy citizens have given the legal system, and victims in general, a bad name. Many Americans have come to believe that we live in the land of the litigious, where grossly frivolous lawsuits and absurdly high settlements reign. Scholars have argued for years that this common view of perversity of our civil legal system is mostly mistaken, but their research and statistics rarely make the news. William Haltom and Micheal McCann here persuasively show how distorted understandings of tort litigation (or "tort tales") have been reinforced by mass media narratives, savvy reform proponents, and prevailing individualistic values. Distorting the Law demonstrates how routine media coverage has sensationalized lawsuits in ways that both benefit corporate elites and underscore negative stereotypes of the claiming of legal rights by ordinary Americans. Based on extensive interviews, analysis of nearly two decades of newspaper coverage, and in-depth studies of the McDonald's coffee case and tobacco litigation, Distorting the Law offers a compelling look at the presumed litigation crisis, the campaign for tort law reform, and the crucial role the media play in the process of producing mass legal knowledge.

ISBN: 0226314642