Are Pain and Suffering Awards (Un-)Predictable? Evidence from Germany

Magdalena Flatscher-Thöni (), Andrea Leiter and Hannes Winner
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Magdalena Flatscher-Thöni: UMIT – Private University for Health Sciences

DANUBE: Law and Economics Review, 2019, issue 3, 199–219

Abstract: This paper assesses the widely held belief that damages for pain and suffering are random or arbitrary. In detail, we investigate whether damages for pain and suffering are systematically affected by individual-, injury- and procedural-specific characteristics and how important these factors are relative to each other. To uncover the predictability of these awards, we rely on a sample of German damages for pain and suffering awards including 2.244 verdicts. By estimating a standard regression model we observe that final awards are systematically influenced by the injury's conditions, by the court level the case is brought in and by the engagement of a lawyer. Our findings let us conclude that damages for pain and suffering and the respective assessment process within the German judicial system are largely reasonable and transparent rather than random.

Keywords: Tort Law; Damages for Pain and Suffering; Civil Procedure; Predictability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Related works:
Working Paper: Are Pain and Suffering Awards (Un-)Predictable? Evidence from Germany (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cmn:journl:y:2019:i:3:p:199-219

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