February 1, 2008

As always, they do interesting empirical work:

Using claim-level data, we simulate the effect of Texas's 2003 cap on non-economic damages on jury verdicts, post-verdict payouts, and settlements in medical malpractice cases closed during 1988-2004. For pro-plaintiff jury verdicts, the cap affects 47% of verdicts, and reduces mean allowed non-economic damages, mean allowed verdict, and mean payout by 73%, 37%, and 26%, respectively. In total, the non-econ cap reduces adjusted verdicts by $156M, but predicted payouts by only $60M. The impact on payouts is smaller because a substantial portion of the above-cap damage awards were not being paid to begin with. In cases settled without trial, the non-econ cap affects 18% of cases; and reduces predicted mean payout for non-economic damages (predicted mean total payout) by 38% (18%). The non-econ cap has a smaller impact on settled cases than tried cases because settled cases tend to involve smaller payouts.

The impact of the non-econ cap varies across plaintiff categories. Deceased, unemployed, and elderly plaintiffs suffer a larger percentage reduction in payouts than living, employed, and non-elderly plaintiffs, these differences are statistically significant for the first two comparisons.

We also simulate the effects of different caps, and find substantial differences in cap stringency across states. Different caps reduce aggregate payouts in tried cases (all cases) by between 16% and 65% (7% and 42%). Caps on total damages have especially large effects.

Available at SSRN.