Personal Injury Law

The Tennessee Jury Verdict Reporter Year in Review - 2010 Part 2

By John Day

Yesterday I shared data on auto negligence cases from Shannon Ragland's Tennessee Jury Verdict Reporter Year in Review 2010.  You can order your own copy of the publication here. 

Here is some other data of interest:

• There were 33 medical malpractice  jury trials in the covered one-year period.  The patient prevailed in 10 of those case.
• There were 16 premises liability jury trials.  The plaintiff prevailed in 4 of those cases.
• There were 2 product liability jury trials, and the plaintiff won both.
• There was one dog bite trial, and the plaintiff won it.

There is 15 verdicts of $1,000,000 or more, increasing the total number of million dollar verdicts for the last six years to 84.  The two million dollar verdicts in auto wreck cases last year involved drunk drivers.  One such verdict was discussed in the previous post.   I have been told, but do not know with 100% certainty, that the other $1 million verdict was against a man with very few assets and only $25,000 in liability coverage.

Five of the million dollar verdicts were in Davidson County.   Five were in medical negligence cases, a statistic that should surprise no one given the fact that the economics of medical malpractice cases are such that handling a case with a value of under $500,000 is almost is unwise absent the clearest of negligence.

In the last six years Davidson County has had only 20 million dollar verdicts.  Knox County has had only 6.  Shelby County has had only 13, and Hamilton County only 9.

In the 957 auto negligence trials in the last 6 years, there have been only 8 million dollar verdicts.

More information to follow.

Full post as published by Day on Torts on March 01, 2011 (boomark / email).