Federal tort lawsuits report [US DOJ] News
Federal tort lawsuits report [US DOJ]

Federal Tort Trials and Verdicts, 2002-03, United States Department of Justice, August 17, 2005 [reporting that there has been an almost 80% decrease in the number of federal tort trials from 1985 to 2003]. Excerpt:

From 1985 to 2003 the number of tort trials terminated in U.S. district courts declined 79%. Juries decided about 71% of tort trials in 2002-03, while judges adjudicated the remainder. Plaintiffs won in almost half of tort trials, and the estimated median award garnered by plaintiff winners in these trials was $201,000. Personal injury claims comprised almost 90% of tort trials in U.S. district courts and property damage cases accounted for the remaining 10%. Almost two-thirds of tort trials were disposed of within 2 years of the filing date.

Read the full text of the report here [PDF]. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

THIS DAY @ LAW

First US life insurance company incorporated

On January 11, 1759, America's first life insurance company was incorporated in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Corporation for Relief of Poor and Distressed Widows and Children of Presbyterian Ministers was established by Presbyterians to support the families of their ministers. In 1988, the company's name was changed to the Presbyterian Ministers' Fund. The company later became Covenant Life Insurance Company before being acquired by Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company in 2002. Read a history of the Presbyterian Ministers' Fund from the Pennsylvania Historical Society.

Treaty ended Anglo-American claims, courts in China

On January 11, 1943, the United States and Great Britain relinquished by treaty their extraterritorial claims in China. This abandonment effectively ended the jurisdiction of the extraterritorial United States Court for China (established 1906) and the British Supreme Court in China. Read more about the United States Court for China, which one scholar has called "probably the strangest federal tribunal ever constituted by Congress," in a short online history of the US Ninth Circuit.