Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T04:41:32.144Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Jurors' Judgments of Business Liability in Tort Cases: Implications for the Litigation Explosion Debate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Valerie P. Hans  and
William S. Lofquist
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Criticisms of the civil jury, including charges that the jury is biased against business, have been central to debates over the litigation explosion and demands for tort reform. This article seeks to inform these ongoing controversies by examining tort jurors' accounts of how they reached decisions in cases with business parties. Interviews and questionnaire data showed that jurors were skeptical of plaintiff tort claims against businesses, organized their accounts more on the actions and motivations of plaintiffs than on the responsibilities of business, and spoke often of the litigation crisis and the importance of limiting awards.

Type
Legal Culture and Legal Discourse
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , 1992 , pp. 85 - 115
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 by The Law and Society Association.

Footnotes

The research reported here was funded by National Science Foundation grant No. SES-8822598. The helpful comments of Stephen Daniels, David Ermann, and Sam Gaertner on a prior draft are appreciated.

References

References

Appel, Andrea (1991) “Do Judicial Instructions Bridge the Deep Pockets Gap?” Honors thesis, University of Delaware, Newark.Google Scholar
Austin, Arthur D. (1984) Complex Litigation Confronts the Jury System: A Case Study. Frederick, MD: University Publications of America.Google Scholar
Black, Donald (1987) “Compensation and the Social Structure of Misfortune,” 21 Law & Society Rev. 563.Google Scholar
Blum, Andrew (1991) “Quayle's Proposals Still Making Waves,” National Law J. 3 (16 Sept.).Google Scholar
Brickey, Kathleen F. (1984) Corporate Criminal Liability: A Treatise on the Criminal Liability of Corporations, Their Officers and Agents. Wilmette, IL: Callaghan.Google Scholar
Bush, Robert A. Baruch (1986) “Between Two Worlds: The Shift from Individual to Group Responsibility in the Law of Causation of Injury,” 33 UCLA Law Rev. 1473.Google Scholar
Casper, Jonathan D., Benedict, Kennette, & Perry, Jo L. (1989) “Juror Decision Making, Attitudes, and the Hindsight Bias,” 13 Law & Human Behavior 291.Google Scholar
Chin, Audrey, & Peterson, Mark A. (1985) Deep Pockets, Empty Pockets: Who Wins in Cook County Jury Trials. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.Google Scholar
Clermont, Kevin M., & Eisenberg, Theodore (1991) “Trial by Jury or Judge: Transcending Empiricism.” Presented at Law and Society Association annual meeting, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.Google Scholar
Coffee, John C. (1981) “‘No Soul to Damn, No Body to Kick:‘ An Unscandalized Inquiry into the Problem of Corporate Punishment,” 79 Michigan Law Rev. 386.Google Scholar
Coleman, James S. (1982) The Asymmetric Society. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Conley, John M., & O'Barr, William M. (1990) Rules versus Relationships: The Ethnography of Legal Discourse. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Cullen, Francis T., Maakestad, William J., & Cavender, Gray (1987) Corporate Crime under Attack: The Ford Pinto Case and Beyond. Cincinnati: Anderson Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Daniels, Stephen (1989) “The Question of Jury Competence and the Politics of Civil Justice Reform: Symbols, Rhetoric, and Agenda-Building,” 52 Law & Contemporary Problems 269.Google Scholar
Daniels, Stephen (1990) “Tracing the Shadow of the Law: Jury Verdicts in Medical Malpractice Cases,” 14 Justice System J. 4.Google Scholar
Daniels, Stephen, & Martin, Joanne (1986) “Jury Verdicts and the ‘Crisis’ in Civil Justice,” 11 Justice System J. 321.Google Scholar
Daniels, Stephen, & Martin, Joanne (1990) “Myth and Reality in Punitive Damages,” 75 Minnesota Law Rev. 1.Google Scholar
Diamond, Shari S., & Casper, Jonathan D. (1991) “Blindfolding the Jury.” Presented at the Law and Society Association annual meeting, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.Google Scholar
Diamond, Shari S., Casper, Jonathan D., & Ostergren, Lynne (1989) “Blindfolding the Jury,” 52 Law & Contemporary Problems 247.Google Scholar
Drazen, Dan (1989) “The Case for Special Juries in Toxic Tort Litigation,” 72 Judicature 292.Google Scholar
Engel, David M. (1984) “The Oven Bird's Song: Insiders, Outsiders, and Personal Injuries in an American Community,” 18 Law & Society Rev. 551.Google Scholar
Ermann, M. David, & Lundman, Richard J., eds. (1992) Corporate and Governmental Deviance: Problems of Organizational Behavior in Contemporary Society. 4th ed. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Fisse, Brent (1983) “Reconstructing Corporate Criminal Law: Deterrence, Retribution, Fault, and Sanctions,” 56 Southern California Law Rev. 1141.Google Scholar
Friedman, Howard M. (1979) “Some Reflections on the Corporation as Criminal Defendant,” 55 Notre Dame Lawyer 173.Google Scholar
Friedman, Lawrence (1985) Total Justice. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc (1983) “Reading the Landscape of Disputes: What We Know and Don't Know (and Think We Know) about Our Allegedly Contentious and Litigious Society,” 31 UCLA Law Rev. 4.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc (1986) “The Day after the Litigation Explosion,” 46 Maryland Law Rev. 3.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc (1987) “Jury Shadows: Reflections on the Civil Jury and the ‘Litigation Explosion,‘” in The American Civil Jury. Washington, DC: Roscoe Pound–American Trial Lawyers Foundation.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc (1988) “The Life and Times of the Big Six: Or, The Federal Courts since the Good Old Days,” 1988 Wisconsin Law Rev. 921.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc (1990) “The Civil Jury as Regulator of the Litigation Process,” 1990 Univ. of Chicago Legal Forum 201.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc, Macaulay, Stewart, Palay, Thomas, & Rogers, Joel (1989) “The Transformation of American Business Disputing: A Sketch of the Wisconsin Project.” Disputes Processing Research Program, Univ. of Wisconsin. Manuscript on file with the authors.Google Scholar
Grabosky, Peter N., Braithwaite, John, & Wilson, P. R. (1987) “The Myth of Community Tolerance toward White-Collar Crime,” 20 Australian & New Zealand J. of Criminology 33.Google Scholar
Greene, Edith (1990) “Media Effects on Jurors,” 14 Law & Human Behavior 439.Google Scholar
Greene, Edith, Goodman, Jane, & Loftus, Elizabeth F. (1991) “Jurors' Attitudes about Civil Litigation and the Size of Damage Awards,” 40 American Univ. Law Rev. 805.Google Scholar
Hamilton, Robert W. (1986) Cases and Materials on Corporations: Including Partnerships and Limited Partnerships. 3d ed. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Hans, Valerie P. (1989) “The Jury's Response to Business and Corporate Wrongdoing,” 52 Law & Contemporary Problems 177.Google Scholar
Hans, Valerie P. (1990) “Attitudes toward Corporate Responsibility: A Psycholegal Perspective,” 69 Nebraska Law Rev. 158.Google Scholar
Hans, Valerie P., & Ermann, M. David (1989) “Responses to Corporate versus Individual Wrongdoing,” 13 Law & Human Behavior 151.Google Scholar
Hayden, Robert M. (1990) “Review Essay: Neocontract Polemics and Unconscionable Scholarship” [Review of Huber 1988], 24 Law & Society Rev. 863.Google Scholar
Hayden, Robert M. (1991) “The Cultural Logic of a Political Crisis: Common Sense, Hegemony and the Great American Liability Insurance Famine of 1986,” 11 Studies in Law, Politics, & Society 95.Google Scholar
Henderson, James A. Jr., & Eisenberg, Theodore (1990) “The Quiet Revolution in Products Liability: An Empirical Study of Legal Change,” 37 UCLA Law Rev. 479.Google Scholar
Hensler, Deborah R., Vaiana, Mary E., Kakalik, James S., & Peterson, Mark A. (1987) Trends in Tort Litigation: The Story behind the Statistics. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.Google Scholar
Huber, Peter (1988) Liability: The Legal Revolution and Its Consequences. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Huber, Peter (1990) “Junk Science and the Jury,” 1990 Univ. of Chicago Legal Forum 273.Google Scholar
Kelman, Herbert, & Hamilton, Virginia L. (1989) Crimes of Obedience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Latane, Bibb (1981) “The Psychology of Social Impact,” 36 American Psychologist 343.Google Scholar
Lerner, Melvin J. (1980) Belief in a Just World: A Fundamental Delusion. New York: Plenum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levi, Michael (1987) Regulating Fraud: White-Collar Crime and the Criminal Process. London: Tavistock Publications.Google Scholar
Lipset, Seymour M., & Schneider, William (1987) The Confidence Gap: Business, Labor, and Government in the Public Mind. Rev. ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Loftus, Elizabeth F. (1979) “Insurance Advertising and Jury Awards,” 65 A. B.A. J. at 68 (Jan.).Google Scholar
Lofquist, William S. (1991) “The Development of Organizational Probation: Assessing Its Significance for Criminology.” Presented at the American Society of Criminology annual meeting, San Francisco.Google Scholar
Louis Harris & Associates (1987) Public Attitudes toward the Civil Justice System and Tort Law Reform [survey conducted for Aetna Life & Casualty]. On file with the authors.Google Scholar
McCauley, Clark, & Jacques, Susan (1979) “The Popularity of Conspiracy Theories of Presidential Assassination: A Bayesian Analysis,” 37 J. of Personality & Social Psychology 637.Google Scholar
Nisbett, Richard E., & Wilson, Timothy (1977) “Telling More than We Can Know: Verbal Reports on Mental Processes,” 84 Psychological Rev. 231.Google Scholar
Olson, Walter K. (1991) The Litigation Explosion: What Happened When America Unleashed the Lawsuit. New York: Dutton.Google Scholar
Orland, Leonard (1980) “Reflections on Corporate Crime: Law in Search of Theory and Scholarship,” 17 American Criminal Law Rev. 501.Google Scholar
Pennington, Nancy, & Hastie, Reid (1986) “Evidence Evaluation in Complex Decision Making,” 51 J. of Personality & Social Psychology 242.Google Scholar
Peterson, Mark A. (1987) Civil Juries in the 1980s: Trends injury Trials and Verdicts in California and Cook County Illinois. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.Google Scholar
Priest, George L. (1985) “The Invention of Enterprise Liability: A Critical History of the Intellectual Foundations of Modern Tort Law,” 14 J. of Legal Studies 461.Google Scholar
Priest, George L. (1990) “The Role of the Civil Jury in a System of Private Litigation,” 1990 Univ. of Chicago Legal Forum 161.Google Scholar
Rourke, Nancy (1990) “The Corporation as Defendant: Comments on the Proposed Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations.” Paper submitted to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, Washington, DC. On file with the authors.Google Scholar
Saks, Michael J. (1986) “If There Be a Crisis, How Shall We Know It?” 46 Maryland Law Rev. 63.Google Scholar
Sanders, Joseph, & Joyce, Craig (1990) “‘Off to the Races’: The 1980s Tort Crisis and the Law Reform Process,” 27 Houston Law Rev. 207.Google Scholar
Sanbonmatsu, David M., Kardes, Frank R., & Sansone, Carol (1991) “Remembering Less and Inferring More: Effects of Time of Judgment on Inferences about Unknown Attributes,” 61 J. of Personality & Social Psychology 546.Google Scholar
Selvin, Molly, & Picus, Larry (1987) The Debate over Jury Performance: Observations from a Recent Asbestos Case. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.Google Scholar
Stone, Christopher D. (1975) Where the Law Ends: The Social Control of Corporate Behavior. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Vidmar, Neil (1991) “Medical Malpractice Juries,” 9 Duke Law Magazine 8.Google Scholar

Case Cited

In re Japanese Electronics Antitrust Litigation, 631 F.2d 1069 (3d Cir. 1980).Google Scholar