The February 2014 edition of the Mississippi Jury Verdict Reporter is out, with details on the following verdicts:
- $1,903,961 bench verdict- Jackson federal court tort claims act medical malpractice trial covered here;
- $80,000 verdict- Madison County car wreck case covered here;
- defense verdict- Hinds County medical malpractice case (Judge Gowan);
- defense verdict- Harrison County medical malpractice case (Judge Clark);
- defense verdict- Lowndes County medical malpractice case;
- defense verdict- Harrison County premises liability case (Judge Clark); and
- defense verdict- Oxford federal court premises liability case (Judge Davidson).
My Take:
You can’t blame tort reform caps on the fact that defendants are winning most trials in general and almost all medical malpractice jury trials. In the medical malpractice and nursing home arena, plaintiffs are probably better off now with arbitration or bench trials than with a jury trial.
Most trial lawyers I talk to on the subject (plaintiff and defense) agree that it’s harder for a plaintiff to get a jury verdict than it was 10 years ago. Lawyers who disagree with this theory tend to be in the camp of haven’t really tried cases over the last 10 years. There has even developed a cottage industry of plaintiff lawyer CLE’s aimed at how to level the playing field.
The interesting conversations that I am having discuss lawyers’ theories for why it’s gotten harder for plaintiffs to win. Some people believe that the tort reform public relations campaigns biased jurors against plaintiffs. Others blame the general trajectory of the economy. Another theory is that the pro-business Bush administration and federal courts subtlety shifted the general populations’ view to subordinate individual rights to corporations’ rights and interests.
And these aren’t the only theories. There are others. It’s an interesting question with no definitive answer.