Memphis & Tennessee Personal Injury: Through A Looking Glass
Trial lawyers, parties to lawsuits and the public at large, often hear about our crowded courtrooms and the "huge jury verdicts" that are handed down in our city and state. Frequently, these comments are followed by proposals to alter the jury system. Proposals that call for changes in the method and manner by which our courts are run and the way in which personal injury and death cases are evaluated by our neighbors who sit on Circuit Court juries.
As a Memphis trial lawyer, I can tell you that those who urge these changes are either miss-informed or who have a different agenda. But please, don't take my word for this thought. Instead, let us do something that is novel and unheard of in the news reports on this topic. Let's look at the facts.
Each year, as we recently reported, the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts issues an Annual Report of the filings and dispositions of cases in our state. It is also broken down by county.
In 2007 through 2008, 62,204 cases were filed throughout Tennessee and 61,890 cases were disposed of by the Circuit Courts. this indicates to me that there is not a tidal wave of filings as we are resolving almost as many old cases as there are new cases filed. Of these disposed cases only 351 matters actually went to trial by jury. Approximately 11,500 of the cases disposed of were probably personal injury or death cases that did not involve a claim of medical negligence or in other words approximately 18.5% of the cases. However, the most interesting figure for Shelby County is that only 22 personal injury cases went to trial in 2007-2008.
The average verdict returned by our juries was $89,260.00. And no, I did not misplace a comma nor omit a zero. In the law there is a latin phrase: Res Ipsa Loquitor. In english, this translates into "The thing speaks for itself." In this case, the facts speak for themselves. I rest my case.
