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2014

Jury trials

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Trial By Jury Or Judge: Transcending Empiricism, Kevin M. Clermont, Theodore Eisenberg Dec 2014

Trial By Jury Or Judge: Transcending Empiricism, Kevin M. Clermont, Theodore Eisenberg

Kevin M. Clermont

Pity the civil jury, seen by some as the sickest organ of a sick system. Yet the jury has always been controversial. One might suppose that, with so much at stake for so long, we would all know a lot about the ways juries differ from judges in their behavior. In fact, we know remarkably little. This Article provides the first large-scale comparison of plaintiff win rates and recoveries in civil cases tried before juries and judges. In two of the most controversial areas of modern tort law--product liability and medical malpractice--the win rates substantially differ from other cases' win …


Pragmatism Applied: Imagining A Solution To The Problem Of Court Congestion, Michael L. Seigel Dec 2014

Pragmatism Applied: Imagining A Solution To The Problem Of Court Congestion, Michael L. Seigel

Michael L Seigel

Can we improve the efficiency of jury trials? If so, would this reduce the problem of court congestion? Is there any reason to favor this approach over those that seek to avoid jury trials altogether? This Article attempts to answer these difficult questions. It does so by articulating and then employing a methodology suggested by recent scholarly ruminations about the philosophy of pragmatism and its implications for legal scholarship and practice. Although pragmatism does not provide "right answers" to questions of legal doctrine-indeed, it rejects the notion that such things exist-it does provide some guidance in formulating the search for …