Law Commons^™

To Dollars From Sense: Qualitative To Quantitative Translation In Jury Damage Awards, Valerie P. Hans, Valerie F. Reyna

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This article offers a new multistage account of jury damage award decision making. Drawing on psychological and economic research on judgment, decision making, and numeracy, the model posits that jurors first make a categorical gist judgment that money damages are warranted, and then make an ordinal gist judgment ranking the damages deserved as low, medium, or high. They then construct numbers that fit the gist of the appropriate magnitude. The article employs data from jury decision-making research to explore the plausibility of the model.

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 …

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 …