Personal injury claims cover a wide variety of cases – from car accidents to falling down the steps and receiving the wrong medication from your physician. Dog bites, broken sidewalks, and misrepresented products all fall under the umbrella of personal injury law, meaning that there is a lot of information swirling around the subject. The following are some quick statistics compiled in the U.S. court system in 2021.

Personal Injury Cases By the Numbers

There are over 400,000 personal injury claims in the United States annually.
The courts see very few personal injury cases, as only 4 % of claims make it all the way to trial – approximately 16,397 go to trial each year. (Source: U.S. Department of Justice) The rest of the cases are settled out of court.
Motor vehicle accidents made up a whopping 52% of the personal injury cases in the country. These incidents include car crashes, motorcycle crashes, and car/pedestrian accidents.
The remaining cases were medical malpractice (15%), product liability (5%), and ‘other’ (28%).

Personal Injury Statistics – Success Rates

Accidents involving vehicles not only make up the bulk of the cases, but they are also the most likely to succeed for the plaintiff. These types of cases see a 61% success rate.

But success rates vary by type of case. Here are some additional statistics that show the success rate of each:

Intentional tort trials: 50%
Premises liability trials: 39%
Product liability trials: 38%
Medical malpractice trials: 19%

Medical malpractice claims see a much lower success rate because it is historically proven difficult to assert medical negligence.

Compensation by Case Type

As with success rates, the amount of compensation varies dramatically from case to case. When we look at all cases across the board, the median compensation amount is $31,000, and more than 50% of cases typically don’t receive more than $24,000.

Product liability returns the highest average compensation: $748,000
Medical malpractice claims represent the next highest average compensation: $679,00
Motor vehicle accident claims represent the lowest average compensation: $16,000
Premise liability claims: $90,000 on average
Intentional tort: $100,000 on average

Personal Injury Statistics: Other Interesting Facts

Accidental injury represents the third highest cause of death in the United States.

In 2017, 169,936 Americans died from accidents. That’s 49 people out of every 100,000 Americans.
There are approximately 6 million car accidents yearly, or an average of 16,438 daily.
Car accidents cause 3 million injuries – and 2 million of these are permanent injuries.
Car accidents are caused by alcohol (40%), speeding (30%), and reckless driving (33%).
Individuals are 23 times more likely to crash while texting.
In 2018 there were 5,250 fatal accidents at work.
Most workers’ compensation accidents (40%) were transportation incidents.
The most dangerous job descriptions were drivers/salespeople and truck drivers, with tractor-trailer truck drivers being the most dangerous.
Slips and falls result in over 1 million emergency room visits annually.
5% of all people who have a fall experience a fracture, making it the most common consequence of this type of accident.
Slips and falls are the biggest reason for missed work.
4.7 million people in the United States are bitten by a dog every year. 16 people die each year due to these bites.
In 2019, 776 incidents and accidents from children’s products resulted in 58 product recalls.
There is an accidental exposure to poison every 15 seconds.

It’s clear that personal injury encompasses a wide variety of cases and situations. If you believe that you have been harmed by someone else’s negligence and would like to explore your options, call a personal injury attorney.

Probinsky & Cole is an experienced personal injury law firm based in Sarasota, Tampa, and Orlando.