Monday, January 11, 2016

Tort litigation quiz

Over at the PopTort, the blog of the consumer advocates at the Center for Justice & Democracy, you can find the latest Torts litigation quiz.  You can read the questions below.  To review the answers and read the commentary you will have to go to their blog, here.  The answers are based on a study conducted by the National Center for State Courts (NCSC).  The findings of this study are not surprising to anyone who has followed this kind of information, but they are based on a small sample of courts.  But, for whatever it is worth, the information is there.

Also, for whatever it is worth, I answered all the questions correctly, although for one of them I would have thought the answer would have been different.  I won't tell you which question, so I don't spoil it for you but it was a question for which I knew the answer would be a low number, so I picked the lowest number available in the options - which was the correct option.  But I would have thought the number would have been even lower.

1. What percentage of civil cases are “tort” lawsuits?
a. Less than 10%
b. 25%
c. 50%
d. More than 75%

2. What types of lawsuits constitute most of these “contract” cases that are flooding the courts? Are they:
a. Consumers suing banks?
b. Consumers suing credit card companies?
c. Consumers suing health insurance companies?
d. None of the above

3. What percentage of tort cases are decided by judges or juries?
a. 80%
b. 50%
c. 25%
d. 15%

4. What percentage of the civil caseload is made up of those high-profile medical malpractice or products liability cases?
a. Less than 1%
b. 10%
c. 40%
d. 75%

5.  For the ones that do reach a jury, seventy-five percent of tort judgments are:
a. Less than $5 million
b. Less than $1 million
c. Less than $100,000
d. Less than $20,000
e. None of the above
f. All of the above

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