Despite the large numbers of baby boomers in the U.S., we’ve always been known as a country that doesn’t respect old age. And that fact plays out in the number of times the elderly recover when they’re plaintiffs in certain cases—information that could help insurance companies as well as plaintiff’s attorneys weigh the pros and cons of settling versus going to trial.
In a prior study, VerdictSearch found that plaintiffs' winning percentage rises from birth until about the age of 29, after which it declines with each decade. Thus, elderly plaintiffs have the worst winning percentage of all.
This time VerdictSearch followed up by examining whether an elderly plaintiff is always a weak plaintiff. Overall, plaintiffs age 75 or older win about 49% of the time, as depicted by the red bar on the accompanying chart, which is based on cases reported to VerdictSearch. Elderly female plaintiffs (pink) fare marginally worse than the baseline, while elderly men (blue) do a little better.
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Rosalie Donlon
Rosalie Donlon is the editor in chief of ALM's insurance and tax publications, including NU Property & Casualty magazine and NU PropertyCasualty360.com. You can contact her at [email protected].
