Farm equipment injuries lead to highest jury awards: study

Victims of injuries caused by farm products tractors, backhoes and more received the highest median jury awards over the last decade of all products liability segments, says a new study by Pennsylvania-based Jury Verdict Research.The new study, “Products Liability: Verdicts, Settlements and Statistical Analysis”, covers compensatory jury awards in product liability cases between 1993-2002 in the U.S. During that time, the median jury award for farm product-related cases was US$1.64 million, with transportation product-related injuries following at US$1.37 million.Surprisingly, consumer products was far behind other segments, with median compensatory awards of US$168,000. Also low on the list is commercial products at US$325,000.They study also examines such areas as the probability of plaintiffs winning their case, percentage of jury awards topping US$1 million, and other verdict tallies for 50 different categories of cases. Topping this list are drug/vaccine-related cases, where the highest median award is US$2.02 million, with awards topping US$1 million about 80% of the time and plaintiffs winning in 67% of cases. Breast implant cases also proved costly, with median awards of US$1.5 million, 54% of awards topping the US$1 million mark, and a plaintiff recovery rate of 36%.The cases studied come from Jury Verdict Research’s database of more than 213,000 personal injury cases. More information on the study is at www.juryverdictresearch.com.