What’s the plan?

Can you prove that statement? More specifically, why is it better then say French or German systems? If nothing else, they are cheaper and citizens in those countries trusts them.

On related note, why is US system never used as an example of the best system outside of US? Could it be that US system is not the best in the history of word?

On juries: It is not them being stupid. It is them not being able to absorb a lot of new facts and knowledge within short time. It is them not having experience with such decisions. It is them not having to explain their decisions and them not having their decisions reviewed.

Appellate court in other countries can review also evidence and facts. They are able to say “judge got it wrong”. There is very low chance for this to happen with jury.

Judges go through long learning process and they have to understand the law, fact finding and evidence evaluations prior the court. None of it is new for them when the court starts. Plus, selection process removes stupid or overly emotional people from the pool of judges (if done right).

It is more about juries not having supernatural genius learning and understanding abilities.

I’m surprised by the settlement given some of the details above; it must have been a strong case on liability. Nobody hands over $14.5 million without a fight; cost of trial would have been a tiny fraction of that, and the odds of a jury verdict at or above that — for what was essentially an instantaneous death — are in general awfully low. Deceased teenagers routinely bring in awards of $5 million or below.

Some of the comments here made me LOL: Ron Miller wrote a tome of book about insurance company settlements. He knows a couple things about the process.

The fact that there is not a better system doesn’t mean the system can’t be improved or doesn’t deserve criticism. The fact that it is the best system doesn’t mean that it isn’t losing its lead over the number 2 system.

That is the failure in your thinking. Of course jurors are people and people have emotions. But cases aren’t supposed to be tried on emotions. They are supposed to be tried on facts.

As an employer, how am I to know what I am accountable for when a jury is swayed by emotion? If I make a product that satisfies every standard (as in this case with the bat) and some one gets hurt, what have I done wrong? How do I know where the legal “bright line” is when people play on the emotions of a jury for a sympathetic plaintiff?

If you read the comments in the article on this case, you can see people’s “thinking.” Constantly you read comments such as “the kid is going to need a lot of medical care so let the company pay for it.” While there are some comments asking “what did the company do wrong?” And “aren’t there things such as accidents anymore?” there are a large number of people simply looking at the pockets of the defendants.

The thinking is only “who has the deep pockets?” and not the law. Does it happen all the time? No. But the difference between you and I (and a lot of other people in this thread) is that you seem happy with the status quo while others want to address the problems in the system.

Oh, and the John Edwards trial?

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/31/politics/campaign/31EDWA.html?ei=5007&en=4fb97ac07a96f186&ex=1390885200&partner=USERLAND&pagewanted=print&position=

In 1985, a 31-year-old North Carolina lawyer named John Edwards stood before a jury and channeled the words of an unborn baby girl.

”She speaks to you through me,” the lawyer went on in his closing argument. ”And I have to tell you right now — I didn’t plan to talk about this — right now I feel her. I feel her presence. She’s inside me, and she’s talking to you.”

This trial was the talk of the nation when Edwards was running for Vice President. How you missed this is beyond me.

Moreover, it is a “they are so dumb” argument. Jurors are so dumb they can’t get past their emotions to make the proper decisions? It is so paternalistic.

If American can’t work in a group and make the correct decisions, bad jury verdicts are the least of our worries.

You are stating as fact that John Edwards won cases based solely on emotion. Set for the facts you rely upon to support this contention. Did you read the transcripts? Did through the medical journals to read the literature? Or are you parroting back what someone else said?

(Also, when did John Edwards pretend to be the injured defendant? I’m not saying it didn’t happen but I’ve never heard of it.)

Jeff, in the bigger picture, I agree that juries do dumb things. Human do so jurors do. Not for nothing, so do judges. So even if you have Stella and John Edwards wrong, there are other cases out there you don’t know about that support your premise. But there has never been a better system in the history of the world to decide criminal guilt or innocence or liability in a civil case.

Surely, you are not saying that emotional issues, which in my opinion should not be deciding factors, are not considered by jurors. Certainly, Stella Liebeck’s case was swayed by jurors who thought that McDonald’s defense team was “arrogant” and felt sorry for Ms. Liebeck. John Edwards won numerous cases by closing his arguments on CP cases by pretending to be the injured defendant. He didn’t do this because jurors were to consider just the facts.

If a settlement has not relationship to the merits of the case, then the parties are idiots. I’m sorry, there is not much I can do about that.

Look, the jury system is not perfect. You can argue that is is awful. But this awful is the best justice system in the history of the world.

So many of you follow the Justice Scalia interpretation of the Constitution as long as they are applied exclusively to the provisions you like.

You say “cannot trust the jury to get it right.” Okay, explain to me why you believe the average American is so stupid that he cannot make decisions as a jury. Why are they so dumb and how did you get so much smarter than the rest of us?