Martin Grace reports (Mar. 3) on a study (PDF) of medical malpractice closed claims in the state of Washington between 1994 and 2004. One striking finding (Grace's wording): "almost 50 percent of the defense costs go to claims with no payment". Despite much talk about how lawyers operating on contingency have no incentive to file weak claims since they don't want to risk nonpayment, someone out there sure seems to be filing a lot of weak claims.