POLITICS: NYC remains a ‘judicial hellhole’ and Gov. Hochul must reform it — or step aside

New York City now ranks No. 2 on the American Tort Reform Foundation’s annual list of “Judicial Hellholes” as excessive legal costs hit an eye-popping $89 billion a year.

City government and the private sector pay that big to fend off frivolous lawsuits over dubious injuries and supposed “pain and suffering” that in most of America would be laughed out of court.

Consumers have to pay higher costs for everything, including insurance; workers lose out on jobs that leave the state (or never get created here in the first place); taxpayers get reamed, too.

Most of the blame falls on state government: In thrall to donations from the trial-lawyers’ lobby, the Legislature’s made it easy to sue big even when there’s no real harm, or when the plaintiff did nothing wrong except having enough money to be worth targeting.

Of course, the city Democrats who largely decide who gets to be a judge have made Gotham’s courts even more disreputable.

“The city’s courts are a playground for fraudsters and opportunistic trial lawyers, while honest New Yorkers foot the bill,” notes ATRA president Tiger Joyce.

Foot the bill as taxpayers and as potential customers and employees, since being a “judicial hellhole” slams businesses of all kinds.

New York’s “liability environment and lawsuit-friendly policies drive up costs and are a major factor driving businesses and residents to greener pastures in other states,” says Ashley Ranslow of the National Federation of Independent Business.

Some examples:

• The dream of owning a Dairy Queen melted into a nightmare for two Suffolk County sisters after an ex-employee filed a case over overtime payments, which morphed into a $6 million class-action case — ultimately settled for $750,000. Under a tortured judicial ruling, the penalty for the alleged “late payment” is 100% of the late payment.

• Long Island-based attorney Spencer Sheehan is a food label chaser who recently filed a suit alleging that supermarket chain Weis Markets’ claim that its generic-brand fruit cup packaging is misleading in saying the snacks contain “100% fruit juice.” He’s filed hundreds of similar cases against companies like Walmart, Aldi, Stop & Shop, the Hershey Company and Target.

• The notorious state Scaffold Law forces construction firms to pay workers injured on the job, even if one who’s been hurt was negligent or even drunk on the job. Four city builders have launched a racketeering case against a pack of lawyers attorneys alleging a sophisticated scheme that coordinates runners to stage accidents to set up fraudulent claims with high-dollar payouts.

Other criminal enterprises stage road accidents to feed cases, and use fake “disabled” plaintiffs to hold up businesses for supposed violations of the accessibility laws.

And the “litigation lending” industry pays people in advance to sue, often at the cost of the lenders eating up most of the eventual settlement.

This is an old problem across the state that’s only growing worse: Again, ambulance-chasers, scammers and their ilk make tens of billions off this racket and share a portion of their ill-gotten gains with politicians who keep making it ever easier to sue.

The latest giveaway, the so-called “Grieving Families Act,” is now on Gov. Hochul’s desk, awaiting what we hope is a third straight veto.

This outrage is yet more reason Albany needs to get hit by a reform tidal wave to drive out the office-holders owned by special interests that prey on the public.

If voters don’t drive back the grifters and the grabbers, the decks are only going to get even more stacked against honest, hard-working citizens.