DOJ Study Finds Plaintiffs Win More Than Half of Cases

Some surprising info here. The National Law Journal reports that a new Department of Justice report finds that "plaintiffs won in more than half of state court civil trials in 2005 and were more likely to get a favorable verdict in bench than jury trials." Judges ruled in plaintiffs' "favor in 68 percent of the cases, while juries favored the plaintiffs 54 percent of the time." The report also concluded that there was a "final median damage award of $28,000" and "punitive damages were awarded in about 5 percent of the cases, with $64,000 as the median punitive damages award." Additionally, there was "a major drop in the number of civil trials, with numbers decreasing by 52 percent from 1992 to 2005 in the nation's 75 most populous counties. In these counties, the median final award also decreased, from $72,000 in 1992, to $43,000 in 2005." The exceptions were in products liability trials, where "median awards were five times higher in 2005" and in medical malpractice cases, where median awards more than doubled.