Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Law
Recognizing Odysseus' Scar: Reconceptualizing Pain And Its Empathic Role In Civil Adjudication, Jody L. Madeira
Recognizing Odysseus' Scar: Reconceptualizing Pain And Its Empathic Role In Civil Adjudication, Jody L. Madeira
Articles by Maurer Faculty
This Article proffers a consideration of how the expression of pain impacts the interpersonal dimensions of personal injury proceedings, contesting through philosophical logic and textual analyses of case law and legal practitioners' texts the conclusion of scholars such as Elaine Scarry and Robert Cover that pain unmakes both the word and the world. Seeing pain as something that can and must be communicated, albeit in a different form than pain embodied, makes pain a much more profound force, comports with our understanding of pain as a physical yet interpersonally meaningful sensation, and has many evidentiary ramifications. Taking as its premise …
Lashing Reason To The Mast: Understanding Judicial Constraints On Emotion In Personal Injury Litigation, Jody L. Madeira
Lashing Reason To The Mast: Understanding Judicial Constraints On Emotion In Personal Injury Litigation, Jody L. Madeira
Articles by Maurer Faculty
Arguing from the premise that personal injury plaintiffs and injury evidence do not taint proceedings by encouraging jurors to adjudicate based on emotion rather than evidence, this article reviews and challenges judicial attempts to constrain jurors' emotive responses to an injured plaintiff in three areas of personal injury litigation: voir dire, admissibility of evidence, and restrictions on damages arguments and assessment. The judicial abhorrence of sympathy as a ground for substantive decision making during some phases of the trial clashes with judicial tolerance of the emotion during others, giving rise to a pattern of sympathy in, sympathy out where the …