CHARLESTON -- West Virginia is receiving mixed messages this week about its court system.

For the sixth year in a row, the American Tort Reform Foundation labeled West Virginia a judicial hellhole in its annual comparison of different states legal climate, which was released Dec. 18.

However, before that study came out, a pair of political scientists from West Virginia University's Institute for Public Affairs released their own study that said West Virginia's legal climate may not be as bad as some groups claim it is. That study, conducted by professors Richard A. Brisbin Jr. and John Kilwein, was based on surveys from judges, attorneys and others involved in the judicial system, as well as reports from national sources that show the Mountain State is not that far off the mark.

The report said the state has not seen an explosion of frivolous lawsuits, as some people have claimed. And it also said some records show caseloads have declined in most courts in the state.

"The response of the circuit judges suggests that popular conceptions of the frequency of frivolous suits in West Virginia courts are often inaccurate," Brisbin and Kilwein's report read.

But Kilwein said the release of his and Brisbin's report was not timed to counter the ATRF announcement.

"It was purely coincidental," he said, explaining their study, which was published in the "West Virginia Public Affairs Reporter," is a periodic look at the courts and the challenges facing them.

The ATRF report ranked West Virginia as the No. 4 Judicial Hellhole in the nation. The report criticized the state for being too open to out-of-state lawsuits and chided it as one of only eight states in the country that does not have an intermediate appellate court.

"But unlike the other seven states, the Supreme Court in West Virginia isn't obligated to look at cases," said Darren McKinney, director of communications for the American Tort Reform Association, which is the parent organization of the foundation that issued the Hellhole report. "Until that circumstance is corrected, it's likely that West Virginia will stay a hellhole for some time."

However, the ATRF's report did give the state some kudos. The report mentioned the state's efforts to reform medical malpractice laws under its "points of light" section, and it lauded some judges, including Circuit Court Judge Arthur M. Recht, for taking a strong stance against frivolous lawsuits.

"We are not dumping on West Virginia," McKinney said. "It's made progress. But is it still a hellhole? Yeah, it is."

Not everyone agrees with the ATRF report, though.

As soon as the new hellhole report was issued, the West Virginia Association for Justice spoke out against it, calling it "unreliable propaganda." It criticized the report for being harsh on the state's new venue bill, which was the result of massive compromises among the state's trial lawyers, the state and national Chambers of Commerce and other business interests.

"This latest attack just goes to show how nonsensical their position really is. It's not about 'fixing' anything. The truth is that the U.S. Chamber and its allies at ATRF would rather attack our state and call it a 'judicial hellhole' than back real solutions that West Virginians put together," West Virginia Association for Justice President Teresa Toriseva said in a news release.

The Association for Justice isn't alone. Brisbin and Kilwein's report also raises some questions about the "judicial hellhole" label that has been slapped on the state.

"I find the hellhole label kind of funny, but at the same time, it hurts," Kilwein said. "It hurts the state. What's galling about it, is it is not based on fact. ... It's political."

He said the ATRF's annual report is based more upon speculation. He criticized the report for not using reported facts and proven studies to make its determination but instead basing it upon media reports, assumptions and anecdotal evidence.

"We don't have the data to reach those kinds of conclusions; it's not available," he said. "But they present it as facts, and we don't have the facts for it."

But Steve Roberts, president of the state Chamber of Commerce, said he gives more credence to the ATRF's study than the WVU Public Affairs report.

"Nobody I know is giving credence to that little WVU report," he said. "It's not seen as being the final word by anyone."

Kilwein said one of the big findings of the WVU study is that the family judges and some circuit judges are overworked in West Virginia and in need of respite. He said the Supreme Court also is overwhelmed, and the system is underfunded.

"We need more judges in family court and in the circuit court system," he said.