Tennessee personal injury and wrongful death filings are down again.
For the fiscal year ending June 30, 2013, there were only 9868 tort filings in Tennessee circuit courts. The total number of filings for the year ending June 30, 2012 was 9933 The 2013 number represents less than a 1% decrease from a year earlier.
But what is more revealing is a look at the numbers from 10 years ago. For the year ended June 30, 2004, there were 13,192 tort cases filed. Thus, in the last ten years, tort filings are down over 25%.
Note: the recent numbers to not include health care liability (formerly known as medical malpractice) filings. There were 385 medical malpractice cases filed for the year ending June 30, 2013. A year earlier there were 368 health care liability filings. The 2004 numbers include health care liability filings. There is no publicly available information about the number of such filings in that year. The specific numbers for medical malpractice cases were first published for the year ending June 30, 2007 was 583. Thus, filings in health care liability cases are down over 30% in the last six years.