My brush with law (i.e. Jury Duty :-)

May 6, 2009

I was summoned to serve as a juror in a civil case in a state county court. As you may know, the U.S. constitution guarantees the right to a jury trial in most cases.The 7th amendment provides this right for civil cases. Countries like India abandoned the jury trial model decades back with the understanding that peer jury not specifically trained to provide judgment in complicated cases may botch justice. The practice of serving justice varies country by country. Some allow jury trial for extreme criminal cases alone, some allow if the defendant wants one, etc. You can read lot more about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_trial. About a decade back I have expressed my doubts about how well are public qualified to deliver verdicts setting aside emotions & prejudices. American friends have pointed out that while that may be arguable, it should generally be more difficult to buy off dozen jurors compared to one judge. 

Now having sat through a case and delivered a verdict, though it may not be flawless, I do think the system works well. Of course if the underlying society has problems like corruption, citizenry not taking its civic responsibilities seriously, unresolvable hostility between different tribes/communities that form the country, etc. any type of justice system can still fail whether it is a judge or a bench or a jury delivering a verdict. But in this case it was a positive experience.

Case was about a traffic accident. An 80 year old lady who is the defendant had rear ended a 24 year old lady who is the plaintiff in a stopped intersection in 2004. Defendant immediately agreed that it was her fault. It was just a fender bender and both of them drove away with no injury, no air bag deployment, no ambulance transport, etc. Insurance company seems to have paid to get the mildly damaged bumper fixed. Now 28 year old plaintiff is suing the 84 year old defendant claiming that the accident subsequently resulted in a back injury causing recurring aches that is precluding her from starting up a bakery thus demolishing her life long dream. Both sides presented physician testimonies discussing her injury. They all said that her X-rays, MRI and bone scans taken within few days of her injury does not show any issues. So, the injuries became subjective since nothing could be proven objectively. Plaintiff had gone through several rounds of treatments and had reached MMI (Maximum Medical Improvement) state couple of years back, meaning there is no additional medical treatment possible to make her feel better. Just to be on the conservative side, her physician had recommended that she should do light duty work that will not involve lifting more than 20 lbs of weight.

Though she had completed a 1 year culinary college course in 1999, plaintiff has been working only as a part time waitress earning about $7000 a year. She has not made any progress towards starting her own business though her father testified on the stand that he was going to support her starting the bakery business with financial help. She is living in her mother's house paying rent to her mother. Because of this back injury, she claimed that she had to give up on the idea of starting her own bakery and finished a course to become a medical billing/coding clerk. But she didn't pursue that avenue either though that would have got her a job paying about $33,000 a year in the county where we live. Her reason for not following that career is that it requires her passing an exam for which she has to pay $300 fee and buy books for $70. Though her father was willing to support her financially even to start a business, she didn't want to ask him for $370 since she didn't want to be a financial burden..! So she continues to work as a part time waitress earning the same $7000 a year even now. 

Her lawyer brought in a vocational rehabilitation expert who said that due to her injury her productive work-life horizon will be cut short by about 7.8 years. Considering the fact that medical clerks could earn a median salary of $33,000 in the county, he computed her loss of income in her life time as $257,000. He then added an additional $72,000 for benefits employers would normally provide (P.F. or 401K type retirement savings, etc.) and said her losses are about $329,000. So, they wanted that money (or some part of it) + additional award for non-economic damages such as pain & suffering, humiliation, quality of life loss, etc. 

Fourteen jurors were selected for this case where 12 of us were the required jury and two standby. All 12 of us were from the same county, 5 women and 7 men. We were repeatedly instructed not to discuss the case even amongst ourselves until the final closing arguments were completed by both sides and our charges were handed over to us asking us to start the deliberation. To make sure the process is not tainted, each time anyone of us had to use the toilet, we were escorted by the court clerks. No one in the court including plaintiff, defendant, their attorneys or others (except the judge and court clerks) would even greet us each day. We had to hand over the notepad we were given to take notes to the clerk before we leave the court room even if we are to get it back in the adjacent jury room which was just 50 feet away. The whole process was intentionally designed to be very deliberate and slow thus boring at times as we all agreed. Still, I was quite impressed as to how seriously and sincerely all 12 of us followed the rules to ensure that the process is not compromised in anyway. 

Today when we were finally given the charge asking us to deliberate the evidence and provide our verdict as to how much the awarded damages should be, the speed with which we all unanimously agreed on the verdict surprised us all a bit. Within minutes we all agreed that award for loss of wages should be zero since she was not handicapped in any measurable way that would preclude her from earning what she was earning anyway. Even if she wanted to open a bakery, she could get someone else to do any occasional heavy lifting required. But if she becomes a medical biller/coder/transcriptionist, there will be no need for any heavy lifting anyway.

But since the defendant had conceded that the accident was her fault, the judge said we must provide an award for the second part, i.e. non-economic damages such as pain & suffering. Can you guess how much we awarded her..? Correct answer is $370. Hopefully she got the message. :-)

Even though most of the jurors were probably not college educated, and even though several hours of physician testimonies we heard involved enough medical details, functional capacity test results, etc., I was impressed as to how things were broken down and presented so that anyone with common sense can assess the validity of the plaintiff's claim. It was interesting as to how all the jurors with differing economic/work backgrounds still had similar values and had identical take on plaintiff's outlook. Even though I wouldn't agree with couple of them on their views on politics, gun control, etc, we could easily see eye to eye. Since this is a civil case (unlike criminal cases), unanimous verdict is not required. As per Pennsylvania law, 10 out of 12 jurors agreeing on the verdict would have been sufficient. But ours was unanimous. I am sure other cases can be lot more complicated, verdicts may not come out easily, etc. But many of us expected at least some argument for a while before we reach consensus. But there was no need for any. 

For having served 3 days on this case + 1 day for jury selection in early April, I was paid $62.88 for my services ($9 per day for first 3 days and then $25 for subsequent days + mileage). I don't have to do this at least for another 5 years. Though I wouldn't want to do this over and over again, over all it was a very interesting, positive  experience.