Personal Injury Law

Car Accident Lawsuits: Time Magazine Article

Take a look at this Time Magazine article on auto accident lawsuits. The article has the usual stuff: insurance company complaints about high verdicts, people faking injuries, jackpot justice, the backlog in the courts, and the fact that most personal injury victims only receive small settlements. Here are a few quotes:

The automobile accounts for half to three-quarters of personal-injury suits, fully 25% of all civil cases brought to state law courts. In Chicago, more than 50,000 auto cases are awaiting trial. In Los Angeles, auto liability cases have nearly tripled in the past decade. In New York City, more than 90,000 new cases come up each year. Across the country, Americans pay out $6.5 billion a year in automobile insurance premiums?yet in the past decade the insurance companies have suffered a net loss of more than $850,000 on this business.

Getting his case to the jury so that [the auto accident victim can recover] may take four years in New York City, three years in Boston, over 2½ years in Honolulu or Detroit. Courts in Los Angeles have held the delay to less than two years. In Miami the wait is less than six months?an interval many lawyers consider too short to allow the medical evidence to "ripen." But in Chicago, at the other extreme, the traffic jam is backed up for a staggering 5½ years.

The article underscores the frustration the general public has with the whole thing: car insurance companies, the courts, car accident lawyers, and accident victims. Oh, one more thing worth mentioning. The article was published in Time over 45 years ago.

Full post as published by Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog on January 16, 2009 (boomark / email).