Tort lawsuits filed in federal courts increased slightly in the second quarter of 2020, with most of the 173 cases related to the COVID-19 pandemic alleging negligence against cruise lines, according to a report from Lex Machina.
Lex Machina’s first “Torts Litigation Report,” released Thursday, defined a tort as a case in which “a party seeks compensation for loss or harm caused by personal injury or one’s reputational harm to an individual.” The report, which looked at filings from 2010 through Sept. 30, 2020, found case filings increased until mid-2019, after which they dropped, but they began rising again in 2020 with 4,582 cases filed in the third quarter.
