Number of Federal Tort Trials Falls By Nearly 80 Percent

Associated Press, August 19, 2005

The number of tort trials in federal courts has fallen by nearly 80 percent in less than two decades, a government study found Wednesday, a trend the Bush administration would like to see duplicated at the state and local levels.

Legal experts attribute the drop to Supreme Court rulings in the 1990s that made it much more difficult for people bringing lawsuits in federal courts to prevail. "Plaintiffs have been avoiding federal courts," said Aaron Twerski, dean of the Hofstra University school of law. Nine out of 10 tort trials in federal courts involve personal injuries such as product liability, car accidents and medical malpractice cases, and the estimated median award by people who won their lawsuits was $201,000 in 2003, the latest year for which figures are available, the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics reported.

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