Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | T | Trial

Talking to jurors about damages in a down economy: how has the recession affected jurors' thinking about harm, damages, and fair compensation? Are they more sympathetic to others' suffering, or less? A jury consultant looks at the research and finds some surprising answers.

Article Excerpt
These are tough times. In parts of the country, the unemployment rate is in double digits, and the news is filled with stories about record numbers of bankruptcies, foreclosures, and wildly seesawing financial markets.

As a result, people are paying more attention to money--their own and others'. And understandably, they've become more fiscally conservative. Americans are spending less, and the average personal savings rate has climbed to the highest level in 15 years, according to the federal government. (1)

Given this trend toward cutting back or going without, it's no surprise that two of the questions trial consultants hear most often from trial lawyers are

* How is the current economic climate affecting jury verdicts in personal injury cases?

Should I be doing anything different now to ensure that my clients get the recovery they deserve?

At this point, we have only anecdotal data to guide our analysis, and that data suggests that the economic downturn may be influencing jurors' decisions about damages in both expected and unexpected ways. (2) For example, in the past year, my consulting firm has seen the following:

* In an obstetrics case, mock jurors rejected out of hand the defense argument that state-funded services for the disabled would take care of the injured plaintiff. They all agreed the state's budget deficit would result in such services being cut.

* Trial jurors awarded a plaintiff in an employment case substantial compensation for wage loss but none for noneconomic harm. (3)

* In a consumer class action, mock jurors wanted to assess a multimillion-dollar punitive damages penalty against a corporate defendant who appeared indifferent to having overcharged each consumer, even though the extra charge was less than $20.

A panel at the national conference of the American Society of Trial Consultants (ASTC) in June attracted a geographically diverse audience of researchers with a common interest in identifying any emerging trends. Many panelists and audience members reported changes in insurers' and institutional clients' views of the risks, costs, and benefits of going to trial.

Those factors may well be affecting verdict trends, but only one person reported observing any fundamental shifts in jurors' decisions about money. It may simply be too soon to gauge the downturn's impact on jurors, or it may be that there is not going to be a simple answer.

If we think back to the time just after the 9/11 attacks, we were in much the same position. Plaintiff attorneys were trying to evaluate how the horrific trauma, pain, and suffering caused by that tragedy would influence jurors' assessments of harm to their clients. Jury consultants conducted pre- and posttrial research, and public commentators advanced a variety of theories based on polling data that monitored significant changes in consumer spending habits.

After awhile, we began to understand that there would be no...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!