Law Commons^™

What's Half A Lung Worth? Civil Jurors' Accounts Of Their Award Decision Making, Nicole L. Mott, Valerie P. Hans, Lindsay Simpson

Valerie P. Hans

Jury awards are often criticized as being arbitrary and excessive. This paper speaks to that controversy, reporting data from interviews with civil jurors' accounts of the strategies that juries use and the factors that they consider in arriving at a collective award. Jurors reported difficulty in deciding on awards, describing it as "the hardest part" of jury service and were surprised the court did not provide more guidance to them. Relatively few jurors entered the jury deliberation room with a specified award figure in mind. Once in the deliberation room, however, they reported discussing a variety of relevant factors such …

Citizen Comprehension Of Difficult Issues: Lessons From Civil Jury Trials, Joe S. Cecil, Valerie P. Hans, Elizabeth C. Wiggins

Valerie P. Hans

Lay participation in debates concerning public policies is a touchstone of a democracy. The Constitution enshrines this value not only by providing for a system of elected representatives, but also by recognizing the right to trial by jury. When a democratic society seeks to impose the rigors of the law on an individual, it must justify those standards to a panel of citizens and allow the austere expression of the law to become infused with the values of the community. Through this process, the vision of justice shared by members of the community informs the dialogue of adjudication. The increasing …

National Juries For National Cases: Preserving Citizen Participation In Large-Scale Litigation, Laura G. Dooley

Laura Dooley

Procedural evolution in complex litigation seems to have left the civil jury behind. Reliance on aggregating devices, such as multidistrict litigation and class actions, as well as settlement pressure created by “bellwether” cases, has resulted in cases of national scope being tried by local juries. Local juries thus have the potential to impose their values on the rest of the country. This trend motivates parties to forum-shop, and some commentators suggest eliminating jury trials in complex cases altogether. Yet the jury is at the heart of our uniquely American understanding of civil justice, and the Seventh Amendment mandates its use …

National Juries For National Cases: Preserving Citizen Participation In Large-Scale Litigation, Laura G. Dooley

Law Faculty Publications

Procedural evolution in complex litigation seems to have left the civil jury behind. Reliance on aggregating devices, such as multidistrict litigation and class actions, as well as settlement pressure created by “bellwether” cases, has resulted in cases of national scope being tried by local juries. Local juries thus have the potential to impose their values on the rest of the country. This trend motivates parties to forum-shop, and some commentators suggest eliminating jury trials in complex cases altogether. Yet the jury is at the heart of our uniquely American understanding of civil justice, and the Seventh Amendment mandates its use …

Empowering The Active Jury: A Genuine Tort Reform, Valerie P. Hans

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The rallying cry of "tort reform" is frequently associated with changes to the civil justice system that restrict the civil jury or avoid it altogether. Tort reformers have praised United States Supreme Court rulings that have led to greater judicial control over the evidence, especially scientific evidence, which juries hear. Other reformers advocate bifurcation of trials to avoid the possibility of jurors being so negatively influenced by testimony about damages that it affects their liability judgments.

The tort system aims to compensate fairly and equitably those who are injured by others, and to do so in an efficient manner. Concerns …

The Power Of A Federal Appellate Court To Direct Entry Of Judgment As A Matter Of Law: Reflections On Weisgram V. Marley Co., Robert A. Ragazzo

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

Federal district court judges have several mechanisms for controlling civil jury functions. One mechanism is the entry of judgment as a matter of law. Federal appellate courts are able to reverse and direct entry of judgment as a matter of law. This article examines the appropriateness of such authority.

What's Half A Lung Worth? Civil Jurors' Accounts Of Their Award Decision Making, Nicole L. Mott, Valerie P. Hans, Lindsay Simpson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Jury awards are often criticized as being arbitrary and excessive. This paper speaks to that controversy, reporting data from interviews with civil jurors' accounts of the strategies that juries use and the factors that they consider in arriving at a collective award. Jurors reported difficulty in deciding on awards, describing it as "the hardest part" of jury service and were surprised the court did not provide more guidance to them. Relatively few jurors entered the jury deliberation room with a specified award figure in mind. Once in the deliberation room, however, they reported discussing a variety of relevant factors such …

Citizen Comprehension Of Difficult Issues: Lessons From Civil Jury Trials, Joe S. Cecil, Valerie P. Hans, Elizabeth C. Wiggins

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Lay participation in debates concerning public policies is a touchstone of a democracy. The Constitution enshrines this value not only by providing for a system of elected representatives, but also by recognizing the right to trial by jury. When a democratic society seeks to impose the rigors of the law on an individual, it must justify those standards to a panel of citizens and allow the austere expression of the law to become infused with the values of the community. Through this process, the vision of justice shared by members of the community informs the dialogue of adjudication.

The increasing …

Controlling The Civil Jury: Towards A Functional Model Of Justification, Pamela J. Stephens

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Twelve-Person, Unanimous Jury: Does It Have More Than History To Recommend It?, Richard O. Lempert

Articles

My focus today will be on the twelve-person unanimous jury and on the contrasts between such juries and six-person juries or twelve-person juries than can return verdicts by ten-two or nine-three votes. Until about fifteen years ago, it appeared that the sixth and seventh amendments required all federal juries to have twelve members who reached unanimous verdicts, and it appeared possible that the Supreme Court would force the states to conform to the federal standards. Instead, the court did almost the opposite. It sanctioned juries as small as size six in state criminal cases and federal civil cases, and it …

Chapters Of The Civil Jury, Doug Rendleman

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.