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

Flatscher-Thöni, Magdalena; Leiter, Andrea M.; Winner, Hannes

doi:10.2478/danb-2019-0011

Figures & Tables

Distribution of DPS awardsNotes: Panel A plots the whole distribution of DPS awards, while Panel B focuses on compensations below the median (= EUR 5.460).

DPS awards over gender and ageNotes: Bold lines within the boxes represent the median of (log) compensations. The boundaries of the boxes indicate the interquartile range, i.e., the two quartiles at the center of the distribution. The whiskers in the plots have a length of 1,5 times the interquartile range. Entries outside the whiskers refer to observations in the upper or lower tails of the distribution. The dashed line represents the overall median (=8,605), which is close to the mean reported in Table 1.

DPS awards and severity of painNotes: See notes to Figure 2. *Includes 98 observations and collects the ones of permanent major (2 observations), permanent grave (1) and permanent significant injuries (95).

DPS awards over court type and years before/after the change in German tort lawNotes: See notes to Figure 2. FI and SI denote the first and second instances; DC, RC and PC represent the District, Regional and Province Court, respectively. Years before/after the change in German tort law are indicated as “<2002/>2002”.

Residual plotNotes: Linear prediction is based on the linear regression of Model D in Table 2. The slope parameter (standard error) of the dashed line (regression of predicted values on residuals) amounts to about −0,010 (0,026), being highly insignificant.

Injury severity levels according to NAIC-classification

Severity of the injury	Description
Emotional injury	Fright, no physical damage
Temporary Insignificant	Temporary lacerations, contusions, minor scars, rash; no delay in recovery
Temporary Minor	Infections, misset fracture, fall in hospital; recovery delayed
Temporary Major	Burns, surgical material left, drug side effect, brain damage; recovery delayed
Permanent Minor	Loss of fingers, loss or damage to organs; includes non-disabling injuries
Permanent Significant	Deafness, loss of limb, loss of eye, loss of one kidney or lung
Permanent Major	Paraplegia, blindness, loss of two limbs, brain damage
Permanent Grave	Quadriplegia, severe brain damage, lifelong care or fatal prognosis
Death

Estimation results

	Model A		Model B		Model C		Model D
	Coef.	SE	Coef.	SE	Coef.	SE	Coef.	SE
A. Victim-specific characteristics

Female	0,009	0,044	−0,034	0,057	0,016	0,065	0,192	0,174
Young			0,068	0,108
Adult			−0,023	0,086
Retired			−0,181	0,142
Age in years					−0,004	0,002^**	−0,005	0,004

B. Injury-specific characteristics

Contributory negligence	−0,010	0,002^***	−0,009	0,002^***	−0,008	0,003^***	−0,011	0,006^*
More injuries	0,732	0,048^***	0,763	0,062^***	0,854	0,075^***	1,029	0,162^***
Emotional injury	0,562	0,089^***	0,600	0,119^***	0,513	0,158^***	0,411	0,183
Temporary minor	0,679	0,057^***	0,617	0,077^***	0,559	0,091^***	0,435	0,183^**
Temporary major	1,675	0,106^***	1,653	0,122^***	1,599	0,131^***	1,765	0,241^***
Permanent minor	0,946	0,089^***	0,934	0,115^***	0,993	0,136^***	0,843	0,300^***
Permanent serious ^a)	2,248	0,129^***	2,169	0,143^***	1,986	0,154^***	2,281	0,372^***
Death	1,001	0,226^***	1,192	0,306^***	1,123	0,342^***	1,263	0,731^*

C. Procedural-specific determinants

First instance Regional Court	2,122	0,106^***	2,406	0,169^***	2,694	0,225^***	2,640	0,222^***
Second instance Regional Court	0,725	0,142^***	1,148	0,261^***	1,129	0,301^***	1,041	0,304^***
Second instance Province Court	2,275	0,108^***	2,497	0,170^***	2,667	0,222^***	2,616	0,221^***
Case disputed in Eastern Germany	−0,052	0,074	−0,104	0,093	−0,066	0,118	−0,069	0,121
Case disputed in Northern Germany	−0,029	0,059	0,048	0,078	0,080	0,091	0,093	0,092
Case disputed in Southern Germany	0,025	0,053	0,114	0,068	0,101	0,079	0,098	0,081
Lawyer First instance District Court	0,419	0,103^***	0,451	0,171^***	0,465	0,230^**	0,410	0,228^*
Time trend	0,039	0,004^***	0,048	0,005^***	0,049	0,006^***	0,051	0,006^***

D. Interaction terms

Female x injury-specific char. (8 interactions)	No		No		No		Yes ^b)
Age x injury-specific char. (8 interactions)	No		No		No		Yes ^c)
Observations	2.082		1.181		833		833
R²	0,626		0,628		0,636		0,640

Descriptive statistics

	Mean	S.d.	Min.	Max.
Dependent variable

Compensation in 2005 EUR (Thsd.)	22,303	54,025	0,069	657,70
Log Compensation	8,614	1,690	4,228	13,397

A. Victim-specific characteristics

Female [D]	0,419	0,493	0,000	1,000
Age	30,326	18,582	0,500	85,000
Child^a) [D]	0,187	0,390	0,000	1,000
Young [D]	0,117	0,321	0,000	1,000
Adult [D]	0,649	0,478	0,000	1,000
Retired [D]	0,048	0,213	0,000	1,000

B. Injury-specific characteristics

Contributory negligence (in %)	4,844	13,676	0,000	80,000
More injuries [D]	0,580	0,494	0,000	1,000
Emotional injury [D]	0,065	0,247	0,000	1,000
Temporary insignificant^a) [D]	0,297	0,457	0,000	1,000
Temporary minor [D]	0,396	0,489	0,000	1,000
Temporary major [D]	0,088	0,283	0,000	1,000
Permanent minor [D]	0,097	0,296	0,000	1,000
Permanent significant [D]	0,042	0,201	0,000	1,000
Permanent major^b) [D]	0,001	0,030	0,000	1,000
Permanent grave^c) [D]	0,000	0,021	0,000	1,000
Death [D]	0,013	0,115	0,000	1,000

C. Procedural-specific determinants

First instance District Court^a) [D]	0,242	0,429	0,000	1,000
First instance Regional Court [D]	0,389	0,488	0,000	1,000
Second instance Regional Court [D]	0,040	0,195	0,000	1,000
Second instance Province Court [D]	0,329	0,470	0,000	1,000
Case disputed in Eastern Germany [D]	0,100	0,300	0,000	1,000
Case disputed in Northern Germany [D]	0,180	0,384	0,000	1,000
Case disputed in Southern Germany [D]	0,320	0,467	0,000	1,000
Case disputed in Western Germany^a) [D]	0,406	0,491	0,000	1,000
Lawyer^d) [D]	0,831	0,375	0,000	1,000
Sentence after year 2002 [D]	0,146	0,353	0,000	1,000

Analysis of variance

	Absolute	in %	d.f	MSE	Share^a)
Model	1.200,33	63,6	18	66,69

A. Victim-specific characteristics					0,2 [0,3]

Female	0,05	0,0	1	0,05
Age in years	3,82	0,2	1	3,82

B. Injury-specific characteristics					28,9 [45,5]

Contributory negligence	9,40	0,5	1	9,40
More injuries	115,32	6,1	1	115,32
Emotional injury	7,93	0,4	1	7,93
Temporary minor	32,27	1,7	1	32,27
Temporary major	151,24	8,0	1	151,24
Perminent minor	55,20	2,9	1	55,20
Perminent serious ^b)	161,13	8,5	1	161,13
Death	13,66	0,7	1	13,66

C. Procedural-specific determinants					11,4 [18,0]

First instance Regional Court	100,46	5,3	1	100,46
Second instance Regional Court	11,02	0,6	1	11,02
Second instance Province Court	99,67	5,3	1	99,67
Case disputed in Eastern Germany	0,29	0,0	1	0,29
Case disputed in Northern Germany	0,61	0,0	1	0,61
Case disputed in Southern Germany	1,37	0,0	1	1,37
Lawyer First instance District Court	2,70	0,1	1	2,70
Time trend	62,29	3,3	1	62,29	3,3 [5,2]
Overall mean (constant)	371,39	19,7	1	371,89	19,7 [31,0]
Residual	688,39	36,4
Total	1.888,72	100,0			100,0

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

Figures & Tables

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

Figure 5

Injury severity levels according to NAIC-classification

Estimation results

Descriptive statistics

Analysis of variance

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