Personal Injury Verdicts

June 16, 2008

Average Verdict Value In Head-on Collisions

Jury Verdict Research provides median award data and verdict probabilities in head-on auto, truck and motorcycle accident cases nationally. Plaintiffs prevail and recover damages in 64% of these cases. The median award in these head-on collision personal injury cases is only $31,875.00. This number reflects the fact that 24% of the head-on collision claims in the study were for “back strains” where the average award is only $9,312.00. These are probably not the injuries we think of when we think of a head-on collision.

But here is a genuine shocker: the median head injury verdict in head-on collision accidents is only $25,000.00. If you have a head injury, typically you have a serious accident. So this data is not what I think most attorneys would suspect. If I had to guess at the head-on collision national median, I would have predicted the number would be at least six figures. I would suspect that the average – as opposed to the median – exceeds $200,000 but I could not find any data to support my hypothesis.

Why Settlement Numbers Are Likely Much Higher

June 9, 2008

False Imprisonment Cases: Median Verdicts and Settlements

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The latest edition of Metro Verdicts Monthly provides numbers on false arrest/imprisonment cases.

The median legal false arrest/imprisonment verdict or settlement in Washington D.C. was $25,000.00. Virginia and Maryland have slightly higher median settlements/verdicts of $26,000.00 and $29,000.00, respectively.

I’m surprised the median verdict/settlement is this high because I would think the median case would be one with relatively insignificant injuries except for the inconvenience. There are awful exceptions to that rule, but those awful exceptions would be reflected in the averages—as opposed to the medians.

April 28, 2008

Lawyer Questions Fairness of Baltimore Jurors After Malpractice Verdict

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

On Wednesday, a Baltimore City jury awarded a 78-year-old Owings Mills woman $2 million in a medical malpractice case stemming from a failed surgery that led to three successive leg amputations.

After the verdict, Defendant’s lawyer gave this quote to the Maryland Daily Record: “This reaffirms my long held view that it is extremely difficult for a physician to get a fair trial in Baltimore City, particularly where there is a bad outcome and a sympathetic Plaintiff.”

If I were the reporter, I would have asked a few follow-up questions. Do you think the people of Baltimore are not as smart and more prone to emotion then, let’s say, a Baltimore County jury? Why do you think this is? Is it just malpractice cases we cannot trust them with, or all cases? What should we do about this problem with Baltimore City jurors? Should we replace Baltimore City jurors with the right people, like the good folks in, let’s say, Potomac. If Baltimore City jurors can’t be fair on juries, should we continue to trust them to vote?

March 21, 2008

Legal Malpractice Settlement and Verdicts in Maryland, Virginia and Washington D.C.

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Metro Verdicts Monthly recently provided data on legal malpractice settlements and verdicts in Virginia, D.C., and Maryland.

The median legal malpractice settlement/verdict in Washington D.C. was a whopping $262,500.00. In Virginia and Maryland, the median legal malpractice settlement/verdict was $212,500.00 and $140,211.00 respectively.

What explains the incredible disparity between Washington, D.C., and Maryland and why is Maryland’s median so low? I really have no idea. As always, I find this data very interesting yet useless.

February 19, 2008

Maryland Lead Paint Jury Verdict

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The Maryland Daily Record reports that a Baltimore jury awarded $82,000 to an 8-year-old boy who only briefly exhibited elevated levels of lead in his blood.

In May 2000, the boy’s level was four micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood. In December, his level rose to 29 micrograms. I am a parent of three small children and, as a defense attorney, have defended lead paint cases in Maryland. If my child had a lead level of 29, I would absolutely freak out. Here, thank God, as quickly as the level rose, it fell. By December 28, the boy’s level was 19. It fell to 12.6 in February and then down to 8.6 in March.

The Plaintiff’s lead paint lawyer conceded that he was doing well. Apparently, he was doing great in school and he tested in the 97th percentile for reading, but there is no question lead harms children. Should the fact that the child is doing well be a defense? We know lead paint harms children and we know this child, while doing great now, experienced cognitive delays. Would he be in the 99th percentile but for the lead? So I think the jury’s verdict was probably very reasonable (although you would have to be on the jury to consider an opinion).

November 28, 2007

The Impact of Race and Poverty on American Tort Awards

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

I stumbled on a 2003 study titled “Race Poverty, and American Tort Awards,” written by economists Alex Tabarrok of George Mason University in Virginia and Eric Helland of Claremont-McKenna College in California published in the Journal of Legal Studies that offer some interesting observations on how race and poverty levels impact tort awards. According to the study’s findings, which used data from successful personal injury cases from 1988-1997, as the poverty rates of minority plaintiffs increase so does their average tort award. It is not a one size fits all trend, however, and there are different levels of change seen among the different minority groups. For example, an increase of just one percentage point in poverty for African-American plaintiffs results in a 3 percent increase in jury awards whereas the same increase in poverty percentage yields a 7 percent award increase for a Hispanic plaintiff. Interestingly enough, the exact opposite trend occurs when examining the poverty level of white plaintiffs, whose mean awards decrease with an increase in the poverty rate percentage.

Just as the results of the study vary on the race of the plaintiff, the amount awarded fluctuates depending on the case in question. An increase in plaintiff poverty rates from 15 to 20% to over 25% results in an award jumping from $2.5 million to $4 million for product liability cases and from $1.8 million to $4 million for medical malpractice torts. It appears, however, that plaintiffs in auto cases do not reap the same benefits. Not only are their awards consistently lower than those of product liability and medical malpractice cases (which is hardly a surprise), but the awards seem unchanged by fluctuations in the poverty level.

There is one final but important caveat to this study. While race and poverty level are important factors in the amount awarded in a successful tort case, they seem to have no bearing on whether the plaintiff prevails on liability?

November 26, 2007

West Virginia Supreme Court Applies Medical Malpractice Cap in Interesting Case

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The West Virginia Supreme Court, applying West Virginia’s medical malpractice cap, affirmed the trial court’s decision to cut a $10 million medical malpractice verdict against a West Virginia hospital and one of its doctors down to $1 million. (This is the same thing that happened to us in Maryland 10 years after this post.)

Malpractice?

Plaintiff’s lawyers contended that the non-economic damages cap in medical malpractice cases in West Virginia did not apply to the jury’s verdict because their claim against the hospital did not arise out of the care and treatment of the Plaintiff but because of the hospital’s failure to control an environmental Serratia outbreak which the jury found caused Plaintiff to contract a nearly fatal infection during an otherwise routine anterior cruciate ligament (“ACL”) surgical reconstruction in 1995.

November 19, 2007

Jury Trial with State Farm

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

I had a jury trial in an auto accident case in Anne Arundel County against State Farm last week. It was a soft tissue injury case with over a year of treatment. It was a case we inherited from another lawyer who retired last year.

The biggest weakness of the Plaintiff’s case is that he had few doctor visits before complaining of the soft tissue injury related to the claim. The Defendant’s biggest weakness was their liability defense never made any sense. The Defendant was, however, elderly and very sympathetic. Because the jury is never told insurance will pay the claim, expect this to be a factor in the recovery’s amount even if they suspect there is insurance behind the Defendant.

The jury found for the plaintiff but awarded only a little over $16,000. This thrilled State Farm, and I became depressed for a few days. They won, and I lost. That is how we both saw it and marked our scorecards accordingly.

September 25, 2007

$4 Verdict in Anne Arundel County Drowning Case

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The Maryland Daily Record yesterday reported on a $4 million verdict an Anne Arundel County jury awarded to the parents of a 5-year-old boy who drowned in the Crofton Country Club pool in 2006. The parents of Connor Freed sued D.R.D. Pool Service, Inc, who managed the pool for the country club. The boy was at the pool with some family friend, who found him floating in the pool after a trip to use the bathroom. The suit alleged that the pool was inadequately supervised by only one 16-year-old lifeguard who had 3 weeks’ experience. It further alleged that they incorrectly performed CPR and that they should have used a defibrillator. (D.R.D. filed a cross-claim against the family friend but the jury found him not liable.)

Interestingly, a pretrial ruling dismissed the parents’ claim for the child’s conscious pain and suffering. I do not know all the facts, but unless he was unconscious when he hit the water, I cannot imagine how there could not be a survival action for conscious pain and suffering. [This ruling later was reversed.]

The jury award was 2,000,706 for each of the child’s parents. The 706 represents the child’s birthday of July 6th. That gives me goosebumps. Regrettably, the real recovery will only be about $1,020,000 (plus economic damages) because that is the cap for non-economic damages in a wrongful death case with two or more beneficiaries.

August 3, 2007

Legal Climate: How Does Your State Compare?

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The Institute for Legal Reform apparently ranks states in terms of the legal climate for businesses. The study is flawed. The results are from a survey of the 1,599 in-house general counsel lawyers working for larger corporations – not exactly an unbiased group. For personal injury lawyers, it is also worth noting that insurance companies, whose votes should receive more weight in considering the tort climate, made up only 5% of the total sample. I suspect most of these companies focus on employment law claims, which are a very different animal from tort claims. Still, with these caveats, I think there is at least something telling about the study. Delaware, as always, was the clear “winner” in the poll. Here are the rest of the rankings:

2. Minnesota

3. Nebraska