Law Commons^™

Doctors & Juries, Philip G. Peters Jr.

Faculty Publications

Legislation is pending in both houses of Congress to transfer medical malpractice cases from civil juries to administrative health courts. The Institute of Medicine also wants to take malpractice cases away from juries through a system of binding early settlement offers. Each of these proposals is premised on the assumption that juries lack the capacity to resolve medical malpractice disputes fairly. This article evaluates that premise. It collects and synthesizes three decades of empirical research on jury decision-making, updating the seminal review done by Neil Vidmar over a decade ago.Four important findings emerge from the data. First, negligence matters. Plaintiffs …

Impressions Of A Not-So-Average Juror, Robert H. Jerry Ii

Faculty Publications

Direct observation of jury decision-making is impossible without tainting the quality of the observations, and perhaps the jury's decision itself. Another reason for the difficulty attorneys have in understanding how juries will respond to their efforts is lack of experience. Because attorneys rarely serve on juries, the typical attorney cannot converse with colleagues about personal observations of how juries decide cases.

It is probably fair to say that I am one of only a few lawyers who has served on a jury. My own recollections of my service may well be incomplete, skewed, and deficient. Generalizations from my recollections must …