Empirical Legal Studies

Lott v. Levitt - 7th Circuit Brief Now Available

Lott's brief is now available from the Seventh Circuit's website. The brief is here. The appendix is here.

Damage Caps in Med Mal Cases

Caps on non-economic damages persist as a popular tort reform component. What such caps achieve, however, remains understudied. A paper by Hyman (Illinois), Black (Texas), Silver (Texas), and Sage (Texas), Estimating the Effect of Damage Caps in Medical Malpractice Cases: Evidence from Texas, reports results from their study of Texas's 2003 cap on non-economic damages on jury verdicts, post-verdict payouts, and settlements in medical malpractice cases closed during 1988-2004. Critical to this study are the claim-level data that include information on settlements.  An excerpt from the abstract, below, summarizes key findings.

"For pro-plaintiff jury verdicts, the cap affects 47% of verdicts, and reduces mean allowed non-economic damages, mean allowed verdict, and mean payout by 73%, 37%, and 26%, respectively. In total, the non-econ cap reduces adjusted verdicts by $156M, but predicted payouts by only $60M. The impact on payouts is smaller because a substantial portion of the above-cap damage awards were not being paid to begin with. In cases settled without trial, the non-econ cap affects 18% of cases; and reduces predicted mean payout for non-economic damages (predicted mean total payout) by 38% (18%). The non-econ cap has a smaller impact on settled cases than tried cases because settled cases tend to involve smaller payouts."

Charting Pop Songs

Frank Pasquale's post on charting pop songs over at Concurring Opinions surely deserves a plug here.