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Consumer Litigation Funding and Medical Malpractice Litigation: Examining the Effect of Rancman v. Interim Settlement Funding Corporation
Author(s) -
Xiao Jean
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of empirical legal studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.529
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1740-1461
pISSN - 1740-1453
DOI - 10.1111/jels.12167
Subject(s) - lawsuit , settlement (finance) , plaintiff , interim , business , tort reform , corporation , payment , beneficiary , legislature , supreme court , medical malpractice , actuarial science , law , economics , tort , political science , finance , malpractice , liability
Consumer litigation funding, a growing industry in the United States, is an alternative credit source for cash‐strapped tort plaintiffs. Financiers give plaintiffs nonrecourse loans that are premised on lawsuit outcomes. This article is the first to empirically examine the effect of consumer litigation funding. Specifically, I explore the impact of nonrecourse loans on medical malpractice litigation outcomes by exploiting the variation in timing and geography from two Ohio policy changes: the Ohio Supreme Court's 2003 ban of funding in Rancman v. Interim Settlement Funding Corporation and the state's subsequent legislative legalization of funding in 2008. Using closed‐claim data from the National Practitioner Data Bank, I find evidence that the availability of funding increases claim payment and claim duration.