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Full-Text Articles in Law
Taming Blockbuster Punitive Damages Awards, W. Kip Viscusi, Benjamin J. Mcmichael
Taming Blockbuster Punitive Damages Awards, W. Kip Viscusi, Benjamin J. Mcmichael
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Blockbuster punitive damages awards, i.e., those awards exceeding $100 million, attract attention based on their sheer size. While there have been fewer such awards in the last decade, they remain an important presence in the legal landscape. Taking notice of these and other large punitive damages awards, courts and state policymakers have taken steps to both constrain them and render them more predictable. States have enacted punitive damages caps to limit the amount of punitive damages courts can award, but these caps often contain a number of exceptions and apply only to damages under a specific state’s law. At a …
Do Damages Caps Reduce Medical Malpractice Insurance Premiums?: A Systematic Review Of Estimates And The Methods Used To Produce Them, Kathryn Zeiler, Lorian E. Hardcastle
Do Damages Caps Reduce Medical Malpractice Insurance Premiums?: A Systematic Review Of Estimates And The Methods Used To Produce Them, Kathryn Zeiler, Lorian E. Hardcastle
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Despite common claims made in policy debates, the theoretical connection between tort reform and medical malpractice insurance premiums is ambiguous. Simple models suggest reforms such as statutory damages caps reduce premiums. More elaborate models that account for changes in physician behavior suggest caps might increase or have no impact on premiums. A number of empirical studies have been conducted to estimate the impacts of caps on premiums, and several qualitative literature reviews have attempted to draw general conclusions from the literature. No review, however, has offered a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the full set of empirical studies. This chapter …
Do Damages Caps Reduce Medical Malpractice Insurance Premiums?: A Systematic Review Of Estimates And The Methods Used To Produce Them, Kathryn Zeiler, Lorian Hardcastle
Do Damages Caps Reduce Medical Malpractice Insurance Premiums?: A Systematic Review Of Estimates And The Methods Used To Produce Them, Kathryn Zeiler, Lorian Hardcastle
Faculty Scholarship
Despite common claims made in policy debates, the theoretical connection between tort reform and medical malpractice insurance premiums is ambiguous. Simple models suggest reforms such as statutory damages caps reduce premiums. More elaborate models that account for changes in physician behavior suggest caps might increase or have no impact on premiums. A number of empirical studies have been conducted to estimate the impacts of caps on premiums, and several qualitative literature reviews have attempted to draw general conclusions from the literature. No review, however, has offered a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the full set of empirical studies. This chapter …
Estimating The Effect Of Damages Caps In Medical Malpractice Cases: Evidence From Texas, David A. Hyman, Bernard Black, Charles Silver, William M. Sage
Estimating The Effect Of Damages Caps In Medical Malpractice Cases: Evidence From Texas, David A. Hyman, Bernard Black, Charles Silver, William M. Sage
Faculty Scholarship
Using claim-level data, we estimate the effect of Texas's 2003 cap on non-economic damages on jury verdicts, post-verdict payouts, and settlements in medical malpractice cases closed during 1988–2004. For pro-plaintiff jury verdicts, the cap affects 47-percent of verdicts and reduces mean allowed non-economic damages, mean allowed verdict, and mean total payout by 73-percent, 38-percent, and 27-percent, respectively. In total, the non-econ cap reduces adjusted verdicts by $156M, but predicted payouts by only $60M. The impact on payouts is smaller because a substantial portion of the above-cap damage awards were not being paid to begin with. In cases settled without trial, …
Securitizing Audit Failure Risk: An Alternative To Caps On Damages, Lawrence A. Cunningham
Securitizing Audit Failure Risk: An Alternative To Caps On Damages, Lawrence A. Cunningham
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
For several decades, policy analysts have debated whether to establish ex ante caps on damages that audit firms face for violating state or federal law in their audits of public companies. A common argument supporting caps is a claimed inability of audit firms to obtain requisite external liability insurance and need to resort to self-insurance programs. This Article evaluates this claim by assessing existing insurance resources and inquiring into potential additional insurance devices. The assessment suggests that, for auditors, self-insurance is better than external insurance so that the claim does not necessarily support damages caps. Even if the claim were …