Malpractice suits occurred on a consistent basis in the U.S. even prior to the 1950s and 1960s. Further, their frequency has risen at significant rates through much of the nation's history. Available evidence indicates that severity has generally exceeded the inflation rate for most of the last two centuries. Lack of data precludes much discussion on malpractice probability. Anecdotal evidence does suggest that malpractice probability also rose during the 1800s and early 1900s. Because of these facts the discussion will focus on malpractice frequency and severity.
The available evidence indicates that the growth rate of claim frequency has been quite high since the early 1960s. The data also suggest that claim frequency was relatively stable in the 1950s. Medical malpractice researchers have assumed that malpractice suits were infrequent events and that their incidence had remained stable during previous decades. Danzon (1985) illustrates this viewpoint when she says: “Although physicians, hospitals, and other practitioners have been liable for malpractice for centuries, such actions have been relatively rare until recently. But in the late 1960s and early 1970s the frequency of claims alleging medical malpractice began to expand at unprecedented rates, as did the dollar amounts awarded to successful plaintiffs.”
However, even though the incidence of malpractice cases was evidently stable during the 1950s, it does not necessarily follow that the same stability prevailed in earlier decades. According to DeVille (1990): “Although medical malpractice suits were virtually nonexistent between 1790 and 1835, thereafter patients suddenly began to sue their physicians at an increasing and unprecedented rate. As early as the 1840s the frequency of suits in some parts of the country had filled doctors with a mixture of anger, panic, and confusion. The suits and the alarm increased as the decades passed.”
DeVille (1990) notes that medical malpractice suits first appeared with.........
