Articles Posted in California

In California, the statute of limitations for civil claims related to childhood sexual abuse is complex and has changed over time. In 2019, California passed a new law (AB 218) that extended the statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse civil claims. The law allows victims to file lawsuits until they are 40 years old, or within five years of discovering that the abuse caused them psychological injury, even if they are older than 40.  The law previously had a cutoff at age 26.

First Window in 2003

However, in 2002, the Boston Globe published its investigation into sexual abuse by Catholic priests, which sparked national attention and an increased awareness of the issue of childhood sexual abuse. In response, California passed a law in 2002 that opened a one-year window in 2003 for victims of childhood sexual abuse to file civil lawsuits against their abusers, regardless of when the abuse occurred. This allowed many victims to come forward and seek justice, often against organizations or individuals that had previously been protected by the statute of limitations.

This page looks at the settlement and trial value of personal injury cases in California.  This page was last updated on January 18, 2023.

What is the median verdict in a California wrongful death case?

Jury Verdict Research did a study on personal injury verdicts in California. The study shows the compensatory median award for personal injury trials in California is $150,000. This is a lot higher than the national average of less than $40,000. But plaintiffs receive money damages in only 45 percent of cases that go to trial, which is 5% less than the national average.

Average Verdict in California

Settlement value of California personal injury cases

Earlier this year in Winter v. Gardens Regional Hospital, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals revived a False Claims Act case filed by the Director of Care Management in a California hospital that claimed nearly $1.3 in Medicare claims that sought reimbursement for inpatient hospitalizations that were not medically necessary.

The U.S. District Court of Utah dismissed the case, without leave to amend, for failing to state a claim under the FCA. Specifically, the court believed that the qui tam plaintiff’s complaint failed to state a cause of action under the FCA because the allegations as a matter of law were “subjective medical opinions” that demonstrated a mere “difference of opinion” as to the medical necessity of inpatient hospital admissions.

Facts of Winter v. Gardens Regional Hospital

As the Baltimore Ravens prepare to battle it out next week with the San Francisco 49ers, a very different type of football-related battle begins. The family of Junior Seau, a former linebacker for the NFL, filed suit today against the NFL. The family claims that Seau’s suicide last May was the result of a brain disease, brought on by repeated blows to the head during his twenty-year career.

Seau Suicide

Seau, 43 at the time of his death, died from a self-inflicted gunshot to the chest. Earlier this month, it was determined that he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a neurodegenerative brain disease that can follow multiple hits to the head according to the National Institutes of Health.

NFL Players Lawsuit

This is not the first of its kind. Last June, more than eighty lawsuits involving thousands of former players who suffered concussions and brain injuries were consolidated into one master complaint. The lawsuit accused the NFL of hiding information that linked football-related head trauma to permanent brain injuries. Among the illnesses cited were dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

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Nursing homes have made a furious effort in recent years to end-run the tort system with arbitration clauses. The large nursing home chains have been at the forefront of this movement, incorporating Draconian provisions that require the resident to waive their constitutional right to a jury trial in exchange for admission, often with provisions that limit damages and discovery about what really happened in the first place. In states that allow for punitive damages in nursing homes, these arbitration agreements seek to deprive victims of the right to claim those damages.

California has stood up to the nursing homes – at least on some level – by enacting legislation, passing legislation to void nursing home agreements that require arbitration brought “against the licensee of a facility who violates any rights of the resident or patient as set forth in the Patients Bill of Rights in Section 72527 of Title 22 of the California Code of Regulations, or any other right provided for by federal or state law or regulation.”

Nursing Home Arbitration Agreements Are Oppressive

Another day another Medicaid fraud settlement. In this one, Shield Healthcare, a California medical supplier, paid $5 million to settle a whistle-blower lawsuit that alleged that Shield submitting inflated bills to California’s Medicaid program. The suit claimed that the company submitted false claims and evaded the regulation’s upper billing limit. (I’d be curious how they did that. You have to admire the scope of the evil).

In a related story, California is going bankrupt.

A Jury Verdict Research study found that the average personal injury verdict in California is 1,635,327. The median, which takes out huge verdicts like one in the study for over $100 million, is California.

California juries are tougher on liability: plaintiffs receive damages in 45 percent of cases that go to trial.

Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo filed a lawsuit accused Anthem Blue Cross of California of attempting to pay off plaintiffs involved in a class action over insurance rescissions.

Paying off plaintiffs with money? How awful! Wait, I thought that was the point…