LITIGATION - Settlement payout data

Professor Krauss identifies questions about litigation among states in The Puzzle of Medical Malpractice Payouts over at Forbes.

The article identifies 

per capita payouts[ii] for each of the fifty states, for 2012 and 2013, supplied to [him] by Jeremy Gower at Diederich.  [Per Capita payouts were not calculated by Diederich before 2012.]  As you will see, it turns out that there was very little variation inside each state from one year to the next, but great variation among states. 

The answers may not lie in litigation and tort-reform narratives.