The Arizona Chamber is acting like it has a new tort reform trophy in its grasp with recently introduced legislation into the Arizona General Assembly, SB1403, targeting consumer legal funding transactions.
Instead, the legislation it is promoting would hurt Arizona consumers and provide no benefits to Arizona small businesses. In fact, it might harm Arizona small businesses because legal funding consumers say that the primary reasons they need to make use of legal funding it so pay for responsible items such as rent, mortgage payments, insurance bills and groceries. One might conclude that small businesses would be better served by working class people living up to their financial commitments than by people who have to go into hiding when their creditors call.
The Arizona Chamber appears confused in its belief that small businesses are impacted by the people of Arizona who have accessed legal funding.
The majority of people accessing legal funding have been in auto accidents, and have claims against insurance companies liable for the actions of the individuals that caused the accident.
The Arizona Chamber may be looking out for businesses, but the only businesses they are protecting are the Big Insurance companies who already have significant financial leverage over the working class people that turn to legal funding as an alternative to either not meeting their financial obligations or taking a lowball insurance company settlement. As Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood stated in a recent CNN expose on the claims practices of State Farm (CNN Expose on Insurance Claims Tactics), insurance companies "use their economic power to grind down working people".