New York

The average car/truck/motorcycle accident verdict in New York is $837,020, which is stunningly high compared to most other jurisdictions.

Why is this? Are New York jurors just that much more generous than, say, jurors in Maryland?

The answer is that New York’s no-fault accident law requires that plaintiffs suffer a “serious injury” before a lawsuit can be brought against the at-fault driver. While there is some question that having a magical threshold that needs to be crossed is going to be fraught with great flaws, there is no question that this New York scheme, as desultory as the justice it might bring, keeps minor personal injury car accident cases out of court.

What’s my point? My point is that this completely distorts average car accident verdicts in New York. I read Metro Verdicts Monthly and Mealey’s which provide a lot of individual verdicts in car accident cases in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. It is amazing how many jury verdicts there are for $10,000 when, if you look at the case, is really not such a bad result. New York has none of these cases deflating their average.

New York limits an attorneys medical malpractice contingent fee in a medical, dental or podiatric malpractice case to 30 percent of the first $ 250,000 of the sum recovered; 25 percent of the next $ 250,000 recovered; 20 percent of the next $ 500,000 recovered; 15 percent of the next $ 250,000 of the sum recovered; 10 percent of any amount recovered over $ 1,250,000.

While contingency fees vary from malpractice lawyer to malpractice lawyer, 40% is a common fee in medical malpractice cases. So if a case settles, or the plaintiff gets a verdict for $1,000,000, the attorneys’ fees, in many cases, is $400,000. In New York, when a malpractice case recovers $1,000,000, the malpractice lawyer’s fee is limited to $225,000.

If you are not a malpractice lawyer, you might think that this is not a bad payday for a single case. You are right. But the problem is that plaintiffs’ medical malpractice lawyers lose most cases. When a lawyer loses a case, he might lose $100,000 or more in out-of-pocket costs. This discourages many good lawyers from handling medical malpractice cases.

Articles Posted in New York

New York Car Accident Verdicts

New York Medical Malpractice Lawyer Cap on Fees