Litigation Outcomes in State and Federal Courts: A Statistical Portrait

"U.S. Juries Grow Tougher on Plaintiffs in Lawsuits," the New York Times page-one headline reads.' The story details how, in 1992, plaintiffs won 52 percent of the personal injury cases decided by jury verdicts, a decline from the 63 percent plaintiff success rate in 1989. The sound-byte explanations follow, including the notion that juries have learned that they, as part of the general population, ultimately pay the costs of high verdicts. Similar stories, reporting both increases and decreases in jury award levels, regularly make headlines.2 Jury Verdict Research, Inc. (JVR), a commercial service that sells case outcome information, often is the source of the stories. The stories highlight a major gap in our knowledge of the legal system. Reported aggregate data tend to be exaggerated or incorrect. For example, the figures reported in the Times article almost certainly inflate plaintiff success rates for 1989 and report a time trend that probably does not exist. In an era when court reform and tort reform