Articles Tagged with injury

Tennessee jury verdicts were down substantially in 2010-11, according to data released by the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts. 

Total damages awarded  in tort cases in state court were only $32,051,326, down by a little over 60% from a year earlier, when the total damages awarded  was over $91,000,000.  These numbers include jury and non-jury cases.

The average verdict or judgment  was $168,691,  down over 600% from a year earlier, when the average verdict was over $400,000.  The average verdict includes only those trials in which the fact-finder returned an award of money damages.  It does not include defense or no-money awards. 

The Federal Highway Administration has ruled that the 2009 Edition of the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices must be adopted by the states as their legal standard for traffic control devices within two years.   Here is an excerpt of the Federal Register discussing the rule change. 

The MUTCD contains all national design, application, and placement, standards, guidance, options, and support provisions for traffic control devices. The purpose of the MUTCD is to provide uniformity of these devices, which include signs, signals, and pavement markings, to promote highway safety and efficiency on the Nation’s streets and highways.  The MUTCD is adopted by reference in accordance with Title 23, United States Code, Section 109(d) and Title 23, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 655.603, and is the national standard for all traffic control devices installed on any street, highway, or bicycle trail open to public travel. 

The 2009 edition supersedes all previous editions and revisions of  the MUTCD.   Here is the PDF version.     There is already a change proposed to the 2009 edition.

The Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance has released the forms for reporting on medical malpractice claims for the 2009 calendar year.

The reports are due March 1, 2010.

Here are the instructions for filling out forms as a representative of the claimant.  Here is  the link to the reporting form.

 NHTSA has released a report concerning fatal crashes by young drivers.  The report shows that

  1. „„Youths 15 to 20 years old represented 9 percent of the U.S. population in 2007 and 6 percent of the licensed drivers; however, 19 percent of the fatalities in the United States in 2007 were related to young-driver crashes.„„
  2. Approximately two-thirds of the people killed in fatal young-driver crashes are the young drivers themselves or the passengers (of all ages) of the young drivers. „„
  3. Of the passengers killed riding in vehicles with young drivers, 67 percent are in the same 15-to-20-year-old age group as the drivers.
  4. „„Fifty-six percent of the fatal crashes and 57 percent of the fatalities involving young drivers occur on rural road-ways.
  5. In 2007, 6,982 young drivers were involved in 6,669 fatal crashes. A total of 7,650 fatalities occurred in those crashes.
  6. The 2007 National Occupant Protection Use Survey (NOPUS) states that overall restraint use has increased slightly from the previous year, to 82 percent. However, belt use among  people 16 to 24 was only 77 percent. In 2007, of the 15- to 20-year-old passenger vehicle occupants killed in all fatal crashes, 61 percent (of those whose restraint use was known) were unrestrained. Of the total fatalities in which restraint use was known in 2007, 54 percent of the vehicle occupants killed were unrestrained.
  7. In 2007, 31 percent of young drivers 15 to 20 years old who were killed had blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) of .01 grams/deciliter (g/dL) or greater, and 26 percent of young drivers had BACs of .08 g/dL or greater. These figures are relatively similar to the overall driving population in which 37 percent involved BACs of .01 g/dL or greater and 32 per-cent involved BACs of .08 g/dL or greater in 2007.
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