You are the Brakes on a Runaway Jury
I wrote earlier about medical malpractice cases in
Aside from the legal professionals, a jury of normal people, chosen by both sides of a lawsuit, hear the relevant facts and rule not only for who is at fault, but how much damages they should get based on the law the judge gives them. It takes the unanimous consent of 12 people to award both liability and damages. Think about that. Get 12 of your friends together to go to lunch and propose some ridiculous extreme lunch idea, like “let’s drive to
On the rare occasions when they don’t, the judge has yet another opportunity to put the case back on a reasonable road. He can render a judgment notwithstanding the verdict, or a new trial for an excessive verdict. Then there is the appeals level, another opportunity for a case to be tossed out and sanctions awarded.
What “tort reform” usually means is politicians in
Below is a nice video that shows that the system works. It briefly addresses the famous “McDonald’s coffee cup case” and shows how, once people hear some of the facts that the jury heard, they change their minds, and the “fancy pants” case about the judge who sued the dry-cleaners. Everybody knows that the case was frivolous, but nobody seems to know that the system took care of it without any additional help from the state government.
–Bradley A. Coxe is a practicing attorney in Wilmington, NC who specializes in Personal Injury, Medical Malpractice, Contract and Real Estate disputes and all forms of Civil Litigation. Please contact him at (910) 772-1678.