CHARLESTON — An organization that represents personal injury attorneys in West Virginia said Wednesday that a new report calling the state a “lawsuit inferno” is all smoke and no fire.

In a press release Wednesday, the West Virginia Association for Justice said a report released Tuesday by the American Tort Reform Association listing West Virginia as one of six states that are “Lawsuit Infernos” was an unfounded attack.

“West Virginians have faced the American Tort Reform Association’s false attacks and fake ‘studies’ for more than 20 years,” said Kelly Reed, president of the West Virginia Association for Justice. “The global corporate billionaires behind this campaign don’t care about fair courts and justice. ATRA’s only goal is to gut our civil justice system to increase their corporate profits at the expense of our constitutional rights.”

States placed on ATRA’s Lawsuit Inferno list are accused of having lawmakers who benefit from campaign contributions from the personal injury attorneys lobby, passing legislation that expands legal liabilities and increases the opportunities for lawsuits or rejecting bills meant to expand tort reform.

ATRA singled out the Senate Judiciary Committee for either not taking up bills to further tort reforms in the state, or its Republican members sponsoring bills that increased the numbers of causes of action that people could sue over. But Reed praised the six Republican Senate Judiciary Committee members for standing up for the legal rights of the public to sue if wronged by businesses and other entities.

“West Virginians should thank the legislators who rejected ATRA’s bad bills,” Reed said. “Those lawmakers put their constituents and their rights first — not corporate billionaires.”

One of the pro-tort reform bills profiled by ATRA that didn’t make it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee was Senate Bill 473 — sponsored by Sens. Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, and Ryan Weld, R-Brooke — which proposed significant changes to medical monitoring damages.

In Bower vs. Westinghouse, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals ruled that plaintiffs can recover the future costs when it comes to medical testing as long as the expenses can be tied to the conduct of the defendants and the costs are reasonable and necessary. SB 471 would have required plaintiffs to prove a presently existing and diagnosable physical disease directly caused by the defendant’s conduct.

According to Reed, multiple versions of SB 471 have been introduced by the Republican-led Legislature since 2016, the year after Republicans first took the majority in the House of Delegates and state Senate.

“It’s a zombie bill … ATRA cannot blame the 2025 Senate Judiciary Committee when it’s had 10 years to get it passed,” said Reed. “The bill keeps failing because our state lawmakers want to protect West Virginians.”

ATRA also profiled the failure of the Senate Judiciary Committee to take up a bill which would have provided transparency and oversight of the hiring of private attorneys by local governments.

“If Wheeling or the Raleigh County Commission wants to hire a lawyer, that’s their decision — not the state’s,” Reed responded. “The Senate Judiciary Committee was right to defend local authority and stop government overreach.”

West Virginia came off ATRA’s annual Judicial Hellhole list in 2017. In 2024, West Virginia was listed as a “Tort Reform Trailblazer” by ATRA for the work done by Republican lawmakers to make legal reforms.