Posts Tagged ‘Jury’
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008
There’s a good op-ed online in today’s Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi by insurance-defense lawyer Alex Alston (certainly no bomb-throwing liberal trial lawyer) about how that state’s high court has shifted to protecting businesses and insurers over injured consumers. Switch the states and names and he could as well be describing the Texas Supreme Court.
Notable among Alston’s comments are these:
“Our entire judicial system is built on a “rule of law.” In other words, it makes no difference whether you are a prince or a pauper, the law must be precisely the same for all. A court that substitutes its opinion for that of a jury, or simply decides a case for the benefit of a favored party, tears the basic fabric of our judicial system to shreds. If the rule of law is not followed, the entire foundation of our judicial system is undermined. The public has a right to expect the Supreme Court to follow the rule of law and decide the cases before it fairly and impartially without favor to any party regardless of status, race, creed or color…Should we not demand that [they] follow the rule of law? Certainly it is a fair question to ask why 88 percent of the time, the court reverses a jury verdict for a plaintiff and substitutes its own opinion, and why, in 100 percent of the cases involving an injured victim’s appeals from a jury verdict in favor of a defendant, the court finds for the wealthy or powerful defendant. Our court must be more than a rubber stamp for the rich and powerful. Shouldn’t we expect that and more?”
Well said, Mr. Alston. Undermining the rule of law for injured consumers hurts us all in the long run.
John Cummings
Tags: Jury, lawyer, lawyers, undefined
Posted in Jury, Rule of Law | No Comments »
Monday, April 21st, 2008
A man rented a U-Haul truck to help his daughter move. While getting out of the rear of the truck, the 6-ton truck rolled over the man and left him a paraplegic. 14 surgeries later, he still requires around-the-clock care.
He filed a lawsuit against U-Haul, alleging negligence for renting out a truck that was not roadworthy with faulty emergency brake and worn-down gears. A Dallas County jury last Friday found U-Haul liable and awarded the plaintiffs $87 million.
U-Haul says it plans to aggressively appeal the verdict. It issued a statement that this verdict “is another example of abuse of the legal system against corporate citizens in America.”
Shame on U-Haul. There has never been a more corporate-friendly time in our justice system than right now. Big Business has lobbied to change the laws in their favor, they’ve plowed thousands of dollars into electing judges who are favor corporations over consumers, and they’re benefiting from a 20-year media campaign to vilify victims and their lawyers and poison the jury pool against plaintiffs.
The fact that a Dallas County jury hit them hard tells me that the evidence was truly damning, but U-Haul will no doubt string this out in the appellate system for years to come.
Tags: Dallas, Jury, lawyer, truck
Posted in corporate negligence, personal injury, truck accident | Comments Off
Wednesday, March 19th, 2008
RENO, Nev. - A jury awarded a $590 million wrongful death judgment Tuesday to the young daughter of a woman killed by her estranged husband and to the slain woman’s estate.
Darren Mack, once a wealthy pawn shop owner, is serving a life sentence for the June 2006 killing of his wife and shooting of the couple’s divorce judge.
Under the award in the wrongful death lawsuit, $530 million will go to the couple’s young daughter, Erika, and the rest will go to the estate of his slain wife, Charla, said Hans Jessup, administrator for the Washoe County court.
Tags: Jury, wrongful death
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Saturday, March 15th, 2008
A California jury cleared a cardiologist and a radiologist Friday of negligence in the diagnosis and treatment of actor John Ritter, who died of a torn aorta in 2003.
Jurors said the majority believed the cardiologist summoned to the hospital after Ritter was diagnosed with a heart attack had no time to order a chest X-ray that might have found the tear.
They also said the radiologist, who gave Ritter a body scan two years earlier, did advise Ritter of coronary problems and to consult other doctors, but his failure to do so did not cause his death.
Tags: doctors, Jury
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Wednesday, March 5th, 2008
Excellent piece in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times describing how arbitration is supplanting jury trials. Here’s an excerpt:
“Tort reform is a game of bait-and-switch in which ordinary citizens have been snookered by carefully orchestrated and relentless propaganda into seeing a phantom boogeyman in the much-reviled “trial lawyer” who brings “frivolous lawsuits” to “runaway juries” that render “out of control verdicts” in “judicial hellholes,” making insurance rates and the costs of all goods and services go up. Well, none of those expenses have gone down, have they? All the while, the real target was the justice system set up by our founders to protect the average citizen, and now it is in serious peril.”
Well said, Ms. Garrity.
Tags: Jury, jury trials, lawyer, tort
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Tuesday, February 5th, 2008
Some smart professors at Baylor Law School were skeptical of all the anecdotal “evidence” used by the business and insurance lobbies to push for more restrictions on the rights of injured plaintiffs, so they decided to poll Texas trial judges about “frivolous lawsuits” and “runaway juries.” Here is their conclusion, based on over 300 responses from judges across the state:
“The survey results confirm that most Texas trial judges do not see significant numbers of frivolous filings by people who have no business suing, and plaintiffs with legitimate suits are much more likely to be under compensated than to receive any windfall. Two primary goals for tort jurisprudence are for the victim to receive full compensation and to deter the tortfeasor, and when victims are not fully compensated and tortfeasors are not deterred, neither goal is met.”
Amen, brothers.
Tags: Jury, texas trial judges, tort
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Tuesday, February 5th, 2008
Jury service in the United States is unique among justice systems worldwide, so much so that American juries have been called the “bulwark of democracy.” In fact, our Founding Fathers believed trial by a jury of one’s peers to be of equal importance with representative government, and both concepts were integral in drafting the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson said, “I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet devised by man by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.” Well over two hundred years later, Jefferson’s anchor still holds fast, despite repeated attempts to dislodge it.
But is the jury system at risk? Regretfully, yes. More and more arbitration clauses, anti-consumer legislation, and anecdotal horror stories about “frivolous lawsuits” and “out of control jury verdicts” have put a damper on the number of civil cases that go before a jury. Coincidentally, a recent nationwide poll shows that a majority of Americans do not mind jury service and view it as a privilege and an active part of democracy. It is ironic that in a time of declining access to the courthouse, most of us are willing to serve as jurors.
Quite simply, jurors level the playing field in the search for justice. My favorite fictional lawyer, Atticus Finch, says in that classic book To Kill a Mockingbird, “The only place where a man ought to get a square deal is in the courtroom.” How true. The next time you open the mail to find a jury summons, I hope you’ll take a moment to reflect on the importance of jury service and perhaps groan a little softer. And I hope your experience as a juror is rewarding and meaningful.
Tags: Jury, lawyer
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Monday, December 31st, 2007
The former police officer suffered brain injuries and requires constant care, his lawyer says.
A jury awarded $15.7 million to a San Diego man who sued the city of Los Angeles after he was struck by a city-operated dump truck while riding his motorcycle in Northridge.
The jury reached a decision last week in the case filed by Barry Bowman, a 62-year-old retired police officer who suffered brain injuries as a result of the accident, according to his lawyers.
Bowman’s attorney, Michael Alder, said the 2-year-old lawsuit went to trial after his client was unable to reach a settlement with the city’s lawyers. “They never seemed to understand the potential liability,” Alder said. “They never offered a dime more than $50,000.” The city has not decided whether to appeal.
Bowman, a 24-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department, suffered short-term memory loss and requires 24-hour care as a result of the accident, Alder said. The jury assigned Bowman roughly $4.7 million to cover his medical costs and lost wages and $11 million for pain, suffering and emotional distress.
Tags: accident, Jury, lawyer, truck accident
Posted in truck accident | Comments Off
Wednesday, December 12th, 2007
WATERBURY, Conn. - Attorneys say the family of a Madison teen killed nearly six years ago in a car accident is to receive an $18.3 million settlement. Seventeen-year-old Tim Orefice was killed in Guilford on Jan. 25, 2002. The teen’s car was hit by a Guilford Texaco tow truck driven by Jason Secondino. Secondino, Guilford Texaco, and the company which leased the truck to Guilford Texaco, were all sued in the case that went to trial in October at Waterbury Superior Court. A lawyer says the settlement was reached on the day before closing arguments. An attorney for the family says the award came years after the Orefice family proposed a $1 million settlement that the defendants refused.
Obviously, that jury must have seen some baaaaad evidence and the plaintiff’s lawyers were ready to put on a whale of a closing argument. Wonder if it was the defendants or their insurance company who decided to refuse the earlier offer?
Tags: car wreck, Jury, lawyer
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Friday, November 16th, 2007
Jurors just returned a sentence of life in prison rather than the death penalty for Lance Heard, who was convicted earlier this week of capital murder in the shooting death of Fort Worth police officer Hank Nava.
I don’t practice criminal law and I don’t weigh in with opinions on most criminal trials because their courtrooms are not mine. But I’ve followed this murder trial pretty closely because I have friends on all sides of that case, including the police officer who eulogized Nava at his funeral and the lead defense attorney. Talk about being at opposite ends of the spectrum.
Regardless of one’s views on criminal defense lawyers, or the death penalty, or the justice system, or the police, or whatever, this was a fascinating, hard-fought trial. My hat goes off to the attorneys, the judge, and especially the jurors.
Tags: fort worth, Jury, lawyers, trial
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