California
Malpractice payment activity in 2025, ranked against the other 50 states and DC.
4.09
24th of 51
$353,171
39th of 51
+0.5%
24th of 51
2025 in numbers
- Payment reports
- 477
- Total paid
- $168.5M
- Mean payment
- $353,171
- Payments per 1,000 physicians
- 4.09
- 5-year change in the rate
- +0.5%
- Patient-care physicians (2023)
- 116,593
The physician count is the denominator under every rate above: non-federal M.D.s and D.O.s in patient care, from HRSA’s Area Health Resources File — 2023 is the most recent year published, carried forward to 2025.
Noneconomic damages cap
$470k injury / $650k wrongful death in 2026-era MICRA schedule; rising to higher caps.
Scored 14 of 22 on the bundled scorecard. Verify with counsel before relying on it — this is research, not legal advice.
History
Whether 2025 is part of a longer movement or a single-year blip. A hollow final point marks a year scaled from partial data.
Payment data reflects historical payouts after a written claim or judgment — not a measure of medical quality, and not a prediction of any individual’s risk. Colors on the map are scaled within each year, so compare states within a year and use these numbers, not the colors, to compare a state against itself over time.