Medical Malpractice Newsroom

Tort Reform Has Become A Prominent Issue At The Federal Level

  

Over the past year, the Congress has considered several specific tort reform bills: for example, the Asbestos Compensation Fairness Act of 2003 (H.R. 1586), which would prohibit punitive damages in asbestos cases, and the HEALTH Act (H.R. 5) and the Common Sense Medical Malpractice Reform Act of 2003 (H.R. 321), both of which would limit damages in medical malpractice cases. More general proposals for tort reform have also come before the Congress, notably the Class Action Fairness Act of 2004 (S. 2062), which would have allowed more cases to be transferred from state courts to federal courts. In many instances, states have enacted tort reform proposals similar to those being considered at the federal level. This paper reviews the major studies published since 1993 that evaluate state-level tort reforms and assesses the relevance of that research for evaluating similar federal proposals.

A tort is an injury to someone's person, reputation, or feelings or damage to real property.(1) Under the U.S. system of tort liability, courts can hold injurers liable for many different types of torts, such as those caused by automobile accidents, contract fraud, trespass, medical malpractice, and defective products. The major categories of tort litigation are automobile-related torts (53 percent), premises liability (16 percent), and medical malpractice (15 percent).(2) The plaintiff in a tort suit can seek compensation of two types: compensatory damages to cover the "economic" cost of an injury--for example, medical costs and lost wages--and the "noneconomic" costs of pain and suffering and punitive damages intended to punish a defendant for willful and wanton conduct. (See Box 1 for a list of definitions of some common tort terms.) U.S. tort law is almost exclusively contained in state law, and the large majority of tort cases are filed in state courts. In 2000, more than 700,000 torts were filed in state general courts, compared with only 37,000 in federal courts. Tort law is based primarily on common law--in which judicial rules are developed on a case-by-case basis by trial judges--rather than on legislation.