The Lawsuit Myth?

I'm a huge fan of Free Range Kids, whose proprietor was a grad school classmate. This post is no exception. But I especially liked this comment -- which called into question an assumption that even the free-rangers tend to blithely accept:

Everyone says “sue happy America” much like everyone says “the world is such a dangerous place.” It is basically the same thing – an impression from the media as to this with no definitive evidence of such.

Now, one anecdotal comment on an Internet blog is not the singular of data. But I've long suspected that the notion of America as being extraordinarily litigious is at best overblown, at worst an out-and-out falsehood perpetrated by those who would like to shield the powerful (incompetent doctors, manufacturers of shoddy products, etc.) by eviscerating about the only form of legal redress available to the powerless.

I'm sure it's a lot more complex, and there's always the "Whose ox is being gored?" factor; I'm a journalist, so naturally I'm concerned about runaway libel juries. I'm just saying that the assumption of lawsuit-happy America is one worth examining much more closely.