Juries award plaintiffs more money more often. (Loss/Risk Management Notes: property/Casualty).

A nationwide survey of jury cases found that plaintiffs won cases more frequently than the defense in 2000, and the median compensatory awards have risen steadily since 1994 in premises liability, product liability and medical malpractice cases. But the biggest increase in jury awards in 2000 occurred in personal-injury cases, where the median amount awarded to plaintiffs jumped 26%.

Jury Verdict Research reports on 2000 data in its Current Award Trends in Personal Injury, 2001 edition, because of the lag time between the date a verdict is rendered or a judgment is filed and the time when data are available for the report.

No trends could be tracked to account for the 26% increase in jury awards, said Gary Bagin, a spokesman for Jury Verdict Research. It's important to note that while some plaintiffs win million-dollar awards, most receive far less, David Boxold, managing editor of the study, said in a statement. This is evidenced by the median jury award of $50,000, Boxold said.

The study also reported that in 2000, 64% of vehicular-liability cases produced a plaintiff's verdict, with 56% of products liability cases and 51% of premises-liability cases in favor of the plaintiffs.

The biggest jump was seen in medical malpractice, where median awards jumped 175% between 1994 and 2000, from $362,000 to $1 million. Childbirth cases snagged the top spot in median awards for medical malpractice at $2.05 million. Diagnosis cases came in No. 2 with $750,000, and medication cases were No. 3, with $668,000.

In medical malpractice, the median award in 2000 grew to $1 million, from $700,000 in 1999. The medical-malpractice line has suffered from escalating premiums and underwriting woes carried over from the soft market of the 1990s that saw many insurers underprice coverage. But now, high jury awards are driving up premiums to crisis levels for doctors and hospitals in many states, according to physicians.

In the product liability category, the median jury award jumped to $1.8 million in 2000 from $1.6 million in 1999. The median award for transportation products was the highest at $1 million, and No. 2 was the medical products category at $626,255.

In the premises liability category, the median award against owners or operators of industry property was the highest, at $280,300, followed by government entities at $119,315 and $90,000 for recreational facilities. In the overall premises category, the median award rose 15% in 2000 to $114,862 from $100,000 in 1999. Between 1994 and 2000, the median award rose 88%. The most common injury claims in premises liability between 1994 and 2000 were knee injuries, followed by disc damage.

The report also showed a tightening of the time frame from incident date to trial date since 1994. In the premises liability category, the median number of months from incident to trial was 36 months, according to the 2000 figures, vs. 43 in 1994; in medical malpractice, the numbers were 45 in 2000 vs. 61 months in 1994; and in products liability, the figures were 49 months in 2000, compared with 55 months in 1994.