Judicial Reports: The "Bronx Effect"

By John Ennis

Posted on 09-15-06

Here’s an old favorite from First-Year Torts, inspired by a passage in Tom Wolfe’s 1987 novel Bonfire of the Vanities:

 

Facts:  Your client is recuperating from knee surgery in a Westchester hospital when complications arise.  It requires the attention of a specialist and the patient is transferred to a Medical Center in Manhattan.  He emerges from the operating room well enough, but with little chance of recovering full mobility, which had been anticipated prior to the initial surgery.

Question: Where and when did the malpractice occur?

Answer:  In the ambulance while on the Major Deegan Expressway.

Reason:  You want a Bronx jury.

 

Is the “Bronx Effect” a myth?  Reliable data is difficult to obtain.  Here are the best numbers IJS could find on jury awards, though the authors warned that they might not be comprehensive:

 

Median Medical Malpractice Jury Awards

from 1985 through 1997 (in 1995 Dollars)

Bronx                      1,512,000

Brooklyn                  1,312,600

Manhattan                1,120,000

Queens                    1,079,450

Staten Island            1,057,800

 

Source: The New York Jury Verdict Reporter as reprinted in The 'Bronx Jury': A Profile of Civil Jury Awards in New York Counties, 80 Tex. L. Rev. 1889 (2002).

 

The "Bronx Effect" or "Bronx Jury” has also been cited in criminal cases.  This data is of higher quality:

 

2005 Jury Conviction Rate (Felonies Only)

Manhattan                 75%

Brooklyn                   73%

Queens                     67%

Bronx                        44%

 

Source: New York State Office of Court Administration

 

Staten Island’s 78% conviction rate was pulled because the sample size is so small (18 verdicts, whereas the other boroughs all have more than 200).

 

One last rationale for the Summary Jury Trial program was the Bronx’s backlog of civil cases:

 

2005 Year-End Backlog for the Civil Term of the Supreme Court

                       2005         Cases Pending        Start of 2006
                   Dispositions     End of 2005             Backlog

Bronx               15,319           24,927             19.5 months

Manhattan         25,540           39,834             18.7 months

Staten Island       3,312            4,094             14.8 months

Brooklyn            31,600           37,604            14.3 months

Queens             23,230           17,956              9.3 months

 

Source: New York State Office of Court Administration

 

Posted by Ennis on September 15, 2006 03:37 PM to Judicial Reports