Products Liability Cases Decreasing

The number of products liability lawsuits filed in federal courts is declining.

According to an article posted at www.insurancejournal.com, the number of federal products liability lawsuits declined by 14% last year and are on pace to decline 16% this year. Read the article here.

The study itself may be found at www.lexisnexus.com; the report is here. Tennessee is a “third-tier” state in products liability filings in federal court, with between 1000 and 5000 filings over the 50 months ending 3/1/06.

This made me start thinking about the so-called litigation explosion and what proof there is of it in the federal courts in Middle Tennessee. So, I went to www.uscourts.gov and discovered that civil filings are down in Tennessee, from 2198 in 2001 to 1729 in 2005. That is a decrease of 21.3%. See the data here.

There were 81 “Personal Injury / Product Liability” lawsuits filed in the Middle District of Tennessee in 2005; there were 93 such lawsuits filed in 2001. (See 2001 data here.)

Explosion?

Not quite.

Contact Information