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Full-Text Articles in Law
Time Is Money: An Empirical Assessment Of Non-Economic Damages Arguments, Christopher Robertson
Time Is Money: An Empirical Assessment Of Non-Economic Damages Arguments, Christopher Robertson
Faculty Scholarship
Non-economic damages (pain and suffering) are the most significant and variable components of liability. Our survey of 51 U.S. jurisdictions shows wide heterogeneity in whether attorneys may quantify damages as time-units of suffering (“per diem”) or demand a specific amount (“lump sum”). Either sort of large number could exploit an irrational anchoring effect.
We performed a realistic online, video-based experiment with 732 human subjects. We replicate prior work showing that large lump sum demands drive larger jury verdicts, but surprisingly find no effect of similarly-sized per diem anchors. We do find per diem effects on binary liability outcomes, and thus …
Countering The Plaintiff’S Anchor: Jury Simulations To Evaluate Damages Arguments, Christopher Robertson, John Campbell, Bernard Chao, David Yokum
Countering The Plaintiff’S Anchor: Jury Simulations To Evaluate Damages Arguments, Christopher Robertson, John Campbell, Bernard Chao, David Yokum
Faculty Scholarship
Numerous studies have shown that anchoring strongly effects juries. For scholars and policymakers, this evidence is worrisome for the legitimacy and accuracy of jury decisions, especially in the domain of non-economic damages (e.g., pain and suffering). For litigators, this evidence had led some to believe that “the more you ask for, the more you get.” Others believe that the damage demand must pass the “straight-face” test. But little scholarly literature exist to determine whether an outrageously high request really does undermine the plaintiff’s credibility, and whether this “credibility” effect outweighs the anchoring effect.
Likewise, little scholarly attention considers whether a …