Class Action Lawsuits and Lawyers

However, if judges or juries sometimes wrongly find defendants liable because of conscious or subconscious concern that plaintiffs may lack the resources to deal with their injuries, then such changes may improve efficiency. In either case, it may be more equitable for injurers not to pay victims who receive collateral benefits, at least under some circumstances--which may argue for allowing information about such benefits to be introduced as evidence and considered by juries and judges. Options for Reforming Certain Types of Torts Most of the recent Congressional attention on tort reform has focused on specific types of claims, particularly those arising from medical malpractice or asbestos exposure and those litigated as class actions. Proposals that target those types of claims often include the application of one or more of the broad approaches discussed above, but they generally also include some options that reflect more specifically the nature of the particular claims.
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Class Action Lawsuits and Lawyers

Moreover, they say, large punitive damages can serve equity by punishing egregious behavior on the part of large injurers. Supporters further argue that noneconomic losses such as pain and suffering are as real as economic losses (albeit harder to quantify), so setting artificial limits on awards for such losses may undercompensate some injury victims and may produce some product prices that are inefficiently low because they do not fully reflect the products' true risks. Economists have tried to shed empirical light on the question of the efficiency of tort costs, focusing primarily on punitive damages. However, the limited data have not yielded a compelling answer.
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