Personal Injury Law

Personal Injury Jury Verdicts and the Recession

Michigan Lawyers Weekly published an article titled ?Populist juries side with plaintiffs.? (No web link available.)

This title got my attention because I have been speculating about the impact our economic troubles are having on jury verdicts. The thesis of the article appears to be that juries are more likely to side with plaintiffs in this economy, but are less likely to give large damage verdicts. Although, it quotes one lawyer saying he got a larger verdict than he asked for, which he attributed to the economy.

Unfortunately, the article is just anecdotes from plaintiffs? personal injury lawyers who have recently received good verdicts. This is not exactly the target audience for a fair look at the issue. The lack of hard evidence is not the fault of Michigan Lawyers Weekly. The economy really turned in October with the meltdown in the financial markets, and there is just not a lot of data since then that has been collected and analyzed.

Full post as published by Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog on June 04, 2009 (boomark / email).