Lawsuits Settlements Class Actions and Tort Reform
(In general, states have maintained the original doctrine except in specific cases--for example, for intentional torts, hazardous waste, and medical malpractice.)(12) Other states allow a single defendant to be responsible for compensating the victim's total loss only in cases in which the defendant is found primarily responsible, which is usually defined as more than 50 percent at fault.(13) Other variants of the reform include allowing a defense of comparative negligence (by which defendants' liability can be reduced by proving that the plaintiff was partially responsible for the injury); allowing joint-and-several liability for economic but not noneconomic damages; and restricting joint-and-several liability to cases in which defendants acted in a concerted effort. Changes to the Collateral-Source Rule Under the collateral-source rule, a defendant is prohibited from introducing evidence at trial to show that a plaintiff has received compensation for an injury from another source--for example, an insurance policy.
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4.
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Lawsuits Settlements Class Actions and Tort Reform
They also look at the implications of tort outcomes on economic factors such as liability insurance premiums, insurers' profitability, and the practice of defensive medicine (see Table 1). Table 1. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Major Studies of State-Level Tort Reforms Published Since 1993 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Viscusi
and others
(1993) Browne, Lee,
and Schmit
(1994) Born and
Viscusi
(1998) Kessler and
McClellan
(1996, 2000, 2002) Browne
and Puelz
(1999) Yoon
(2001) Thorpe
(2004)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Outcome Measures Insurance premiums and loss ratios for general liability and medical malpractice Number of tort cases filed Insurance premiums and loss ratios for general liability and medical malpractice insurers Medical expenditures, health outcomes, number of claims filed, and claims costs Number of automobile tort cases filed; value of economic and noneconomic awards Awards recovered by plaintiffs in medical malpractice cases Insurance premiums and loss ratios for medical malpractice insurers at the state level
Reforms Studied Joint-and-several liability; limits on liability; damage caps; other reforms Joint-and-several liability Damage caps; all other types of reform "Direct" and "indirect" reforms (as classified by the authors) targeting medical malpractice as well as more general reforms Joint-and-several liability; collateral-source rule; damage caps; limits on punitive damages; sanctions on frivolous suits or defenses; prejudgment interest; structured settlements Caps on noneconomic damages; caps on punitive damages; limit on wrongful death suits Joint-and-several liability; caps on attorneys' fees; collateral-source rule; damage caps
Period Studied Mid- to late 1980s 1984 to 1989 1984 to 1991 Mid-1980s to late 1990s Mid-1980s to early 1990s 1987 to 1999 1985 to 2001
Data Set Used State-level premiums and losses from Best's Review and Best's Aggregates and Averages Number of tort filings at the state level in 19 states; state characteristics from various sources Premiums and loss ratios by state for each insurance company from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners Hospital admission data for Medicare recipients; physician survey data; malpractice claims data 18,777 individual claims of automobile bodily injury disposed of in 1992 in 45 states Individual malpractice claims against physicians in four states State-level premiums and loss ratios from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners
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Source: Congressional Budget Office based on the studies shown here (full citations can be found in the bibliography of this report).
Note: See Box 1 for definitions of the tort terms used in this table.
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Lawsuits Settlements Class Actions and Tort Reform
Uncertainty about whether legislation will be ultimately found to violate a state's constitution or how long those challenges will take mitigates the effect of tort reform legislation. For instance, insurance companies can be slow to change their premiums in response to a cap on damages if they think those measures will be struck down or take a long time to materialize. There is a dearth of data on tort cases. Few data are available that include details about tort cases brought in the various jurisdictions across the country.
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