Juries "tainted" against lawsuits?
A recent news report in the Houston Chronicle (Andrew Tilghman, "Lawsuit juries harder to find", Feb. 14) suggested that jurors are now arriving at the courthouse predisposed against lawsuits, to the point where judges are finding it hard to impanel unbiased juries. An excerpt:
When state District Judge Elizabeth Ray summoned a pool of 93 prospective jurors to her Houston court last week, she thought that would be plenty from which to find an impartial group of 12. But the case was the kind that has drawn increasingly strong reactions in recent years: a multimillion-dollar lawsuit by a terminally ill woman against the drug maker she blames for her disease. In a scene that has become commonplace in Harris County courts, dozens of people in the jury pool said, in effect, that they simply could not obey Texas law. "They stood and said, `I hate lawsuits, I hate plaintiffs' lawyers and I hate plaintiffs, and I don't think they should even be at the courthouse.' " Ray said. "I thought, `Uh-oh. I can't have that guy because he can't be fair.' " More than 40 people told the judge they had no patience for claims of pain, suffering and mental anguish in such cases. No matter what specifics might be revealed in the trial, they said, they could not award punitive damages. In lawyers' lingo, they "busted the panel," meaning Ray disqualified so many people that she had to summon a new pool of potential jurors.
Reaction? -- Edward Holman, Dallas, Texas
The story does not give enough detail to know for sure what is causing jurors to be excluded, but it implies that this particular judge is keeping jurors off who are skeptical of pain and suffering or punitive damages claims. ("I refuse to ever award punitive damages" is cause to exclude a juror for bias; "I believe punitive damages are awarded too often" is not, if the juror agrees to follow the judge's instructions.) Judges have a lot of discretion to shape juries, which means that jackpot justice remains a risk even when there is a shift in public willingness to make awards that are not socially beneficial. -- Ted Frank