Statistics in the News: Chapter 6 Presenting
Data: Tables and Graphs
Examining the Myth of the Runaway Jury
As Chapter 6 notes, sometimes a simple table can tell a very
important story. Here is one case in point: Lawyers defending
businesses in product liability suits have long sought to
avoid trials by juries. They have preferred trials by judges
on the grounds that juries are irresponsible and incompetent
and, therefore, much more likely than judges to award huge
punitive damages after a guilty verdict. And critics of the
civil justice system have long argued that reform is needed
because of such runaway punitive damage verdicts. (Jury-imposed
punitive awards, intended as punishment, allegedly have no
reasonable relation to compensatory damage awards, which are
intended to pay injured people for their losses.)
But a comprehensive study of 8,724 civil trials in 1996,
covering 45 large courts in Dallas, New York, Los Angeles,
Philadelphia, and elsewhere, found that juries and judges
award punitive damages equally often! Table A summarizes the
findings.
Table A
Percentage of Plaintiff Victories That Included Punitive
Damages, United States, 1996
| |
Awarded by Jury |
Awarded by Judge |
| Defendant Status |
|
|
| Individual vs. Individual |
3.5 |
5.3 |
| Individual vs. Government |
2.4 |
0.0 |
| Individual vs. Corporation |
4.7 |
6.7 |
| Individual vs. Hospital |
3.1 |
0.0 |
| Type of Case |
|
|
| Premises Liability |
1.1 |
10.8 |
| Products Liability* |
7.1 |
8.3 |
| Intentional Tort |
21.4 |
23.8 |
| Fraud |
15.0 |
12.6 |
| Rental/Lease Agreement |
7.3 |
0.7 |
| All Cases |
4.0 |
4.0 |
*excluding asbestos
The study, to be published in the March 2002 issue of the
Cornell Law Review, was conducted by Cornell Professors
Theodore Eisenberg and Martin T. Wells and three analysts
from the National Center for State Courts, an independent
research group in Williamsburg, VA. As Table A shows so clearly,
juries and judges generally hold similar views about the need
for punitive damages. This suggests that juries are far less
arbitrary than is widely believed. At least in 1996, juries
awarded punitive damages in about the same percentage of all
cases as judges did. (The study also shows that the relation
between punitive and compensatory awards was about the same
for juries and judges.)
But note: The new research plainly contradicts the
work of W. Kip Viscusi, a Harvard law and economics professor.
(In a 1999 study, for instance, he reports results of interviews
with 95 state judges and 277 potential jurors. Responding
to questions about a hypothetical railroad accident, 23 percent
of the judges, but 67 percent of the jurors said they would
have awarded punitive damages.) The Eisenberg/Wells findings
also seem at odds with the fact that judges often reduce what
they consider to be unreasonable punitive jury awards. Indeed,
according to Victor E. Schwartz, general counsel of the American
Tort Reform Association, a business group that lobbies for
changes in the law, reform is needed not because juries are
always out of control but because they act as a cheering
section for the trial lawyers in a handful of extreme cases
and then award punitive damages equal to many multiples of
the compensatory awards. Admittedly, even the Eisenberg/Wells
study discovered 7 such outrageous awards among the 121 jury
verdicts containing punitive damages.
Source: Adapted from William Glaberson, "A Study's
Verdict: Jury Awards Are Not Out of Control," The New York
Times, August 6, 2001, pp. A1 and A9.
Additional Readings:
Viscusi, W. Kip. Reforming Products Liability (Harvard
University Press, 1991).
For the Eisenberg/Wells study in question, visit the Cornell
Law Review at http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/clr/default.htm.
For more about the American Tort Reform Association, visit
http://www.atra.org.
|
