A U.S. Department of Justice study being reported by Vesna Jaksic of The National Law Journal, states that

Plaintiffs won in 56 percent of all general civil trial cases. Judges ruled in their favor in 68 percent of the cases, while juries favored the plaintiffs 54 percent of the time…..

State courts handled nearly 27,000 civil cases through bench or jury trials. Sixty-one percent of them involved a tort claim, and the most common tort claim involved motor vehicle accidents………

The report also pointed to a major drop in the number of civil trials, with numbers decreasing by 52 percent from 1992 to 2005 in the nation’s 75 most populous counties. In these counties, the median final award also decreased, from $72,000 in 1992, to $43,000 in 2005………..