New Tennessee law limits lawsuit payouts

[Johnboy60]

A measure to cap payouts for medical malpractice and other civil cases is good for business in Tennessee, said Gov. Bill Haslam, who signed the bill Thursday.

The law places a $750,000 cap on non-economic damages such as pain and suffering. The cap will be raised to $1 million in cases involving serious spinal cord injuries, severe burns or the death of a parent of minor children.

New TN law limits lawsuit payouts | The Tennessean | tennessean.com

 

[Billnew]

No more instant millionaires for accidents?
Awwwwwwwww

Before people scream foul,
this does not include legitamate damages(medical bills, property damages, legal bills etc)
This is money for the inconvience.

 

[jayem]

Missouri has capped non-economic damages since 2005. Our law is stricter--recovery is limited to $350,000. It has kept down malpractice insurance rates.

I'd like to see most all personal injury cases taken out of the courts, and settled by binding arbitration. It's generally faster and the procedural costs for the litigants are less. And it doesn't favor defendants. IIRC, studies have shown that plaintiffs may actually more be more likely to receive damages from an arbitration panel than from a jury. But it will run into constitutional barriers in some states.

 

[revanneosl]

Anybody want to guess where all of the alcoholic surgeons will be moving?

 

[DaisyDay]

If the punishment comes to less than .1% of a single day's profit, why would a company really care if fixing the problem costs .12% of a single day's profit?

The coffee lady was burned severely enough to be hospitalized and to require several skin grafts - so she would still have received her settlement.

 

[citizenthom]

Before people scream foul,
this does not include legitamate damages(medical bills, property damages, legal bills etc)

Lawyers take personal injury cases on contingency--we get paid a percentage of the ultimate payout. Take away non-economic damages and that fee is coming out of the plaintiff's actual expenses. In other words, getting hurt costs you more (as a percentage) that it costs the person who hurt you.

Capping non-economic damages--especially at a figure that low--takes away both the incentive to take cases on contingency, and the incentive for defendants to settle at reasonable figures. Now it becomes a dice roll with a certain--and not very scary--maximum loss.

This bill has already causes many of us--myself included--to stop taking personal injury cases at all. Which is what defendants REALLY want: not to have to pay at all.

 

[Drekkan85]

Citizenthom - except we have no shortage of personal injury lawyers in Canada and our Supreme Court limited general non-fiduciary damages at $100,000 in 1978 (indexed to inflation, so now it's about $334,000 give or take). We have yet to see a huge drop in personal injury suits.

This should be even more true in the US given the sheer number of lawyers you've been pumping out of your TTTs and are willing to do doc review for $20 an hour.

It also helps that we have a costs award system on various schedules. It's also one way to try and prevent "roll the dice" situations - under our rules of civil procedure (in Ontario) if you offer a settlement, and get what you ask for or more, the other side has to pay a higher schedule of costs from the date of the settlement offer that they didn't accept.

We also have various mandatory pre-hearings and judicial mediations to try and 'encourage' settlement of lawsuits.

 

[citizenthom]

Citizenthom - except we have no shortage of personal injury lawyers in Canada and our Supreme Court limited general non-fiduciary damages at $100,000 in 1978 (indexed to inflation, so now it's about $334,000 give or take). We have yet to see a huge drop in personal injury suits.

This should be even more true in the US given the sheer number of lawyers you've been pumping out of your TTTs and are willing to do doc review for $20 an hour.

It also helps that we have a costs award system on various schedules. It's also one way to try and prevent "roll the dice" situations - under our rules of civil procedure (in Ontario) if you offer a settlement, and get what you ask for or more, the other side has to pay a higher schedule of costs from the date of the settlement offer that they didn't accept.

We also have various mandatory pre-hearings and judicial mediations to try and 'encourage' settlement of lawsuits.

Bolded is the big difference. We don't have that system in the U.S. Personal injury lawyers here must front the costs of litigation and swallow those costs if they lose or the recovery is not sufficient. And the doc review workers you described--the new law school graduates saddling six figures in debt--can't afford to do that.

 

[jayem]

Citizenthom - except we have no shortage of personal injury lawyers in Canada and our Supreme Court limited general non-fiduciary damages at $100,000 in 1978 (indexed to inflation, so now it's about $334,000 give or take). We have yet to see a huge drop in personal injury suits.

This should be even more true in the US given the sheer number of lawyers you've been pumping out of your TTTs and are willing to do doc review for $20 an hour.

It also helps that we have a costs award system on various schedules. It's also one way to try and prevent "roll the dice" situations - under our rules of civil procedure (in Ontario) if you offer a settlement, and get what you ask for or more, the other side has to pay a higher schedule of costs from the date of the settlement offer that they didn't accept.

We also have various mandatory pre-hearings and judicial mediations to try and 'encourage' settlement of lawsuits.

Interesting. Sounds like we could learn some things.

Is the damage cap nationwide, or just provincial? The vast majority of tort cases in the US are filed in state court. Any tort reform has to be enacted by 50 different legislatures. And that's ok--all state laws don't have to be identical (as long as there's no Constitutional violation.) But it makes tort reform very difficult.

 

[Drekkan85]

The tort awards are provincial (tried in the various provincial courts). Our division of powers is rather different than yours for what's tried where. That said, the damage cap was set by a trio of Supreme Court cases - the SCC being the highest court both provincially and federally.

It's important to note that all provinces have a trial level and appellate court, with the SCC being the final appellate court. However, the trial courts have different names in different provinces. For instance, in Ontario it's the superior court of justice whereas the trial court in BC is the "BC Supreme Court"... Despite being the court of first instance.