seamusTX wrote:You can be sued, and the situation is full of legal gray areas and the possibility of getting a jury with the collective IQ of a rack of pool balls.
- Jim
There is another explanation. I was on a civil jury in the case of a woman who had fallen in a supermarket parking lot. She was suing the supermarket for back pain. She had a history of back pain before the accident and the supermarket did not even sell the product that she slipped on - and the parties agreed that it was about the size of quarter. After 3 days of trial, we went to the jury room where 4 members of the jury were immediately ready to give her money "because she was suffering." We broached the subject of negligence by the store and there was agreement that there was no evidence presented in the trial that suggested negligence in any way. The women were still adamant that the woman needed compensation for her suffering. It appeared that we were going to be there for a while.
I asked how much they thought her suffering was worth (the plaintiff lawyer suggested $150,000 in his summary.) The 4 jurors thought $50,000 was a fair number. I said "great. let's do that - and I recommend giving the same $50,000 amount to 100 of the patients at John Peter Smith Hospital (Ft. Worth's facility that serves the most indigent patients.) " They were agast. They wanted to know my reasoning. I said "those patients are every bit as entitled to this store's money because they've suffered, too." Dead silence lasted several minutes. Quickly the conversation came back to liability based on negligence. In less than an hour and a half, we had a unanimous verdict of no compensation.
The 4 jurors were simply people who were affected by the story of suffering that had been dragged out for days in court. They were not stupid people, from a pure intelligence standpoint. My point in telling this is that I believe that juries can and do render verdicts based on emotion, not the facts and that the overall intelligence of the body isn't really the question. I suspect that had I not been there, a judgment for the plaintiff would have been rendered or there would have been days of jury deliberations. The 4 were adamant.
The funny part of the story was that the judge had left for the day. He charged the jury at 3pm and expected us to have to return to deliberate the following day. They had to call in another judge after we contacted the baliff saying that we were prepared to deliver our verdict. I'm not sure which of the parties was the most surprised by the speed of the verdict. I will say that I've never been picked for a civil trial jury since. I doubt that I'll pass voi dire again.