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Are Juries Fair to Physicians?

BY Linda S. Crawford
August 27, 2008

Medical malpractice cases are high-stakes events. Although defendants continue to prevail in two-thirds of trials, when the plaintiff wins, the median amount of the verdict is $1.2 million; and developing information indicates that that figure is rising at an alarming rate. See, e.g., Jury Verdict Research, LPR Publications, Horsham, PA, 2003, 2005. According to the National Practitioner Data Bank, there were 17,298 medical malpractice payments made in 2005, either in settlement or after verdict, with a median payment of $174,569 for physicians; obstetrical case payments had a median of $300,000. National Practitioner Data Bank 2005 Annual Report, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Heath Resources and Services Administration, 5600 Fishers Lane, Suite 84-55, Rockville, MD 20857, pg 23. Given how large the awards are when there is a verdict against a physician, many in the medical profession and their defense teams have come to believe that juries are random and unfair. The conventional wisdom seems to be that judge-made decisions are a safer bet for med-mal defendants. Is this true?

Comparing Medical Malpractice Verdicts and Other Verdicts

If an evenly split number of cases go to trial, plaintiffs should win approximately 50% of the time. That is true in personal injury cases in general. Study after study has found that defendants win approximately half of their trials, and that situation has remained remarkably stable since the 1960s. Harry Klaven Jr., The Dignity of the Civil Jury, 50 Va. L. Rev. 1055, 1072 (1964). As recently as 2005, researchers were making the same findings. Shari Seidman Diamond and Mary R Rose, Real Juries, I ANN. Rev. Law & Soc. Sci. 255, 262 (2005). So, every year, overall, plaintiffs win approximately half of the cases that go to verdict.

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