**4.3 Impact on lawsuit statistics**

The purpose of the system is to prevent disputes and to improve quality in perinatal care through no-fault compensation, investigation/prevention. The lawsuit statistics of obstetrics and gynecology as a breakdown of "the number of completed lawsuit of entire medical specialty" published by the Committee on Medical Lawsuit of the Supreme Court of Japan shows a remarkable decreasing trend (**Figure 5**). The "Report on the Verification of the Speeding Up of Trials" published in July 2013 by the Supreme Court of Japan stated that: [19]

*"It is noteworthy that the Japan Obstetric Compensation System for Cerebral Palsy has brought investigative system by a third party and system of equally imposing financial burden for monetary compensation in Japanese society sharing the idea that perinatal care inherently holds potential risk.*

*It is concerned whether the system expands to cover other medical specialties.*

*The system having approved significant number of CP cases supposedly has affected to a certain extent statistics of lawsuit cases of medicine."*

As such, the system was hailed not only by medical society but by legal circle in Japan. As described in the report, medical professionals anticipated to expand

*The Japan Obstetric Compensation System for Cerebral Palsy: Novel System to Improve Quality… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106760*

**Figure 5.** *Lawsuit statistics 2004–2020.*

the system or launch a similar system to cover more clinical specialties. However, there has never been emergence of desire in medical society comparable to the one observed in late 2000s that led to the launch of the system for cerebral palsy. Therefore, the expansion is still under discussion in academic society such as the Japan Surgical Society.
