There is no evidence to support the much-publicized notion that the tort system amounts to a lottery for injured plaintiffs, as President Bush and others have long maintained, writes Philip G. Peters Jr. in the May edition of the Michigan Law Review. If anything, the system appears to be biased against them. In Peters’ 42-page analysis, he reports that studies examining closed claims in three states, as well as those involving major insurance companies, found that the current jury system favors defendant doctors.
“The studies reveal that juries treat physicians very favorably, perhaps unfairly so,” Peters writes,” and are more likely to defer to the judgment of a physician defendant than other physicians are.” Overall, injured patients win only about 27 percent of all cases that go to trial — the lowest rate of any category of tort litigation, researchers have found.
Read the Washington Post article here.