Articles Posted in Missouri

This page looks at personal injury lawsuits in Missouri, focusing on Missouri law and expected settlement amounts and jury payouts in Missouri.

Specifically, our lawyers explain the Missouri tort law you need to know, including the types of damages plaintiffs can get in Missouri, how long they can wait before filing a case, and what damage caps there are. We will also examine the average compensation payout in Missouri personal injury cases by examining sample verdicts and reported settlements from recent Missouri cases.

Damages in Missouri Personal Injury Cases

Missouri has caps on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice lawsuits.  There is no cap on economic damages.  Here are the caps under § 538.210:

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Missouri negligent security lawsuits can be brought by victims of violent crime that occurs at a business, shopping center, apartment complex, or any other type of commercial property that failed to provide adequate security for guests on the premises. These lawsuits are a type of premises liability negligence action and they are commonly referred to as negligent or inadequate security cases.

Plaintiffs in successful negligent security cases are entitled to financial compensation for their injuries under Missouri law. On this page, our injury lawyers look at the elements of Missouri negligent security cases and the average settlement payouts in these cases.

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Last week, the Court of Appeals of Missouri decided a subsequent remedial measures case that I think is of interest to all personal injury lawyers no matter where you practice.

The subsequent remedial measures rule is one of those law school standards that any second-year student can explain in about two minutes. Despite its seeming simplicity, as we see in Emerson v. Garvin Group, the rule is more complicated to apply.

• Settlement amount and jury verdicts in Missouri (update 2023)

Justice Diaz, while controversial, was a loss for personal injury accident and medical malpractice victims in Mississippi. But Mississippi voters also threw out Chief Justice Jim Smith who upheld verdicts for insurance companies 100% of the time, while ruling to overturn verdicts on behalf of victims 88% of the time. It is is just hard to imagine there is no political bent to this types of rulings – the numbers just jump off the page at you. Challenger Mississippi lawyer Jim Kitchens (a former district attorney). Although he was outspent 2:1, Jim Kitchens’ clobbered Justice Smith 54% – 36%.

• Justice Diaz Loses
• Email from Justice Diaz

The Missouri Supreme Court ruled in Sides v. St. Anthony’s Medical Center, that plaintiffs in a medical malpractice case in Missouri may rely on an expert’s opinion that the injury would not have happened in the absence of the defendant’s negligence even without a specific proof of a negligent act.

Facts of Sides v. St. Anthony’s

The patient underwent a lumbar laminectomy with spinal fusion and was discharged three days later. Later on, she filed a lawsuit against both the surgeon and the hospital, alleging that she contracted an E. coli infection during the surgery.

The Kansas City Star reported last month that the average plaintiffs’ verdicts in the Kansas City metro area last year averaged nearly $1.3 million, nearly double the 2006 average of $688,337.

Does this mean that Kansas City juries have become remarkably more liberal? No. Now is the time to dust off all of those “you can prove anything with statistics” clichés.

Average verdicts are always misleading because they involve highs that completely distort the average which is why most statistical analysis of jury verdicts uses the median verdict, not the average jury verdicts.