Damages Were Awarded in Tennessee Personal Injury or Death Trials Only 41% of the Time Over the Last Year.

Analysis:  This post is part of a continuing series of posts on the Tennessee Judiciary Annual Report that was recently published providing court statistics for fiscal year 2012 - 2013 (July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2013).  Today I am going to discuss how often damages are awarded in damages and torts cases involving personal injury or death that proceed to trial in Tennessee over the last year. 

For fiscal year 2012 - 2013 there were a total of 438 personal injury or death cases that proceed to trial.  A total of 180 of those cases resulted in actual damages awards.  As a result, only 41.1% of these trials resulted in awarded damages.  This is a slight increase in number of cases resulting in damages over the prior year (2011 – 2012) when 38.5% of these types of cases resulted in damages awards (530 trials and 204 resulted in damages award).  Keep in mind that we do not know how many of these cases were situations where liability was admitted and the only trial issue was the amount of damages to be awarded. 

I think it is also beneficial to discuss the statistics for the four largest Tennessee jurisdictions.  Shelby County had a total of 76 personal injury or death tort trials and 44 of those cases resulted in awarded damages (57.9% of the time).  This is above the 54.1% average in Shelby County for 2005 – 2012.  Davidson County had a total of 66 personal injury or death tort trials and 43 of those cases resulted in awarded damages (65% of the time).  This is above the 62.9% average for Davidson County for 2005 – 2012.  Knox County had 38 personal injury or death tort trials and 18 of those cases resulted in awarded damages (47% of the time).  This is slightly above the 45% average for Knox County for 2005 – 2012.  Hamilton County had a total of 37 personal injury or death tort trials and 10 of those cases resulted in awarded damages (only 27% of the time).  This is well below the 36.1% average for Hamilton County for 2005 – 2012. 

The remaining counties in Tennessee (after removing the four largest counties) had a total of 221 personal injury or death tort trials.  A total of 65 of those cases resulted in a damages award which was only 29.2% of the time.  These statistics once again show how conservative Tennessee jurisdictions are in awarding damages awards in personal injury or death cases.  The smaller counties tend to be more conservative than the larger counties (at least with using this one statistic for evaluation).