Articles Posted in Connecticut

The average personal injury verdict at trial in Connecticut is $2,519,637, according to Jury Verdict Research.

This is great ammo if you are a personal injury lawyer trying to trump up the value of your case or if you are a tort reform advocate trying to show that juries are going wild. But this is unbelievably misleading.

The median personal injury verdict in Connecticut is $22,499, less than 10% of the average. Only 4% of verdicts exceed $1 million and I would love to see how many of these verdicts are actually collected. My guess? Less than half. Someone got a $326 million verdict in this study. I didn’t look up the verdict, but somehow I doubt someone wrote a $326 million check.

In Georges v. Ob-Gyn Servs., P.C. the defendants, a midwife, and a medical practice, unsuccessfully attempted to overturn and $1.6 million in interest that accumulated as the result of the defendants’ refusal to accept an offer of compromise after a $4.2 million jury award.

Facts of Georges v. Ob-Gyn Servs.

The plaintiffs’ birth injury lawyer filed their original complaint alleging that the defendants committed malpractice during the mother’s pregnancy, labor, and delivery of her child.  The plaintiffs claimed this malpractice caused the child to suffer severe and permanent injuries.  The lawsuit claims that as a result of the defendants’ medical malpractice in managing shoulder dystocia, a young girl sustained a severe, permanent injury to her right brachial plexus.

A recent study by Jury Verdict Research found that the median compensation in personal injury trials in Connecticut is $17,391 and injury victims obtain a financial recovery in 58% of cases that go to trial. This is less than half the national average.

One reason why the personal injury verdicts in Connecticut are particularly low is that the small claims limit maximum in individual injury cases is $5,000. Accordingly, Connecticut personal injury lawyers are required to seek jury trials for smaller cases that would not warrant a jury trial in other jurisdictions. So the number, while disconcerting for Connecticut injury victims and their lawyers, may be someone misleading.

Connecticut Personal Injury Settlements and Verdicts