Comments on: Jury Finds for Merck: Will its Critics Notice?

By: Nate Oman

Nate Oman — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 21:56:10 +0000

Dave: Isn’t the real question comparative. The fact that a jury sometimes gets it right or sometimes gets it wrong is neither here nor there as to whether juries are a good idea. The question is how do they do against the alternatives (presumably judges) and what benefits do they have that could justify their error costs vis-a-vis other alternatives?

Put in concrete terms, what evidence is there that the U.S. civil justice system is superior to the U.K. civil justice system as a result of our retention of trial by jury in civil cases?

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 04:47:41 +0000

Stuart, but the juries weren’t answering two similar questions any more than two different juries considering two different murders. The key factual question, causation, depended (I would suppose) on the plaintiffs’ unique characteristics.

By: Stuart

Stuart — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 01:34:58 +0000

Dave, what is wrong with your argument is that having two such vastly different answers to similar questions reinforces the “luck of the draw” argument.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 19:32:18 +0000

Juries only get it “right” when they convict a criminal defendant and absolve a civil defendant of liability. You see… only guilty people are charged with crimes, and only innocent corporations are ever sued. I guess you missed that memo.

By: KipEsquire

KipEsquire — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 19:26:45 +0000

You know what they say about broken clocks…