April 1, 2001 - Report Cites Increase in Jury Awards in Personal Injury Cases.
LRP Publications, a Pennsylvania-based survey company, had issued a report concluding that the jury verdict awards have increased dramatically in the recent years.
The report stated that jury awards for product liability suits rose 44 percent in 1999 and 261 percent since 1993. Where plaintiffs were injured as a result of employee, company, or company agent's negligence, there was a 37 percent increase in jury awards in 1999 and 126 percent increase since 1993.
According to the report, the median award in both 1998 and 1999 was the same as in 1993 $50,000 for compensatory damages but nearly tripled for punitive damages, from $71,500 to $200,000 for the period of 1993-99.
ATLA President Fred Baron said flaws in the study's data collection and analysis practices led to inflation of these numbers. The report's authors, who gather data from self-reporting sources, obtained abstracts of cases supplied by court clerks, plaintiff and defense attorneys, legal reporters, and media sources. The database contains a fraction of
the verdicts for personal injuries rendered nationwide.
In addition, "the report's authors don't count verdicts in which the plaintiff loses or receives no compensation at all--which account for about half of cases brought to trial," said Baron. "This means the median award numbers are significantly overstated. And the authors do not adjust award amounts to account for inflation, thus allowing reported verdicts to appear as if they are rising much more than they actually are."
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