In This Debate, It's War By Anecdote  When George W. Bush takes
aim at the failings of the tort system, he likes to point out
what he says are its huge economic costs. On Feb. 18, as he
signed the Class Action Fairness Act into law, the President
cited a favorite statistic: "Junk lawsuits have driven the total
cost of America's tort system to more than $240 billion a year
-- greater than any other major industrialized nation."  It's an
attention-getting figure. But like every other number that's
tossed around in this debate, it's misleading. Bush's source for
his recent comment is Tillinghast-Towers Perrin, an actuarial
consultant to the insurance industry. In a 2004 study on tort-
system costs, Tillinghast tallied everything from no-fault
fender-bender claims to the salaries of insurance company CEOs
to calculate that the tort system as a whole is a $246 billion
enterprise. Junk lawsuits weren't even mentioned. "There's no
way to split the number between junk lawsuits and legitimate
lawsuits," says Russ Sutte