As mentioned yesterday, the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts has released the 2009-2010 Annual Report of the Judiciary. The Report Contains statistical data about our court system.
Today we look at information about tort cases that were filed or tried in state court in Tennessee. "Tort cases" includes medical malpractice cases.
There were 10,469 tort cases filed in Tennessee in the year ending June 30, 2010. This is down about 6% from two years earlier – in the year ended June 30, 2008, there were 11,171 filings.
There were 588 tort cases tried in the year ended June 30, 2010. Only 263 of those cases were jury trials. Forty-two percent of cases that were tried (247 cases) were tried in Shelby, Davidson, Knox and Hamilton counties. Monetary awards were given in less than forty percent of the cases that went to trial (229 of out 588 cases tried). Damages were awarded in 118 of the 247 cases tried in the largest four counties.
I will share more data from the Report tomorrow.