Wednesday, May 18th, 2005 — The Economic Policy Institute recently claimed that there is no credible evidence to link the tort system either to the economic ills that critics claim or to the benefits that they argue would be produced by altering it. According to EPI analysis economist Lawrence Chimerine, the tort litigation crisis is based on "wildly overstated cost estimates that have been widely cited by lawmakers and the media as support for calls for legal change." They argue that the country is in the midst of a tort litigation crisis that costs the economy nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars a year.