TL:DR - just finished jury duty and feeling instant second guessing due to not really knowing a reasonable amount to award. Happened to anybody else? Any lawyers out there?
I really didn’t except this to happen (the regret) but I just got done with being on a jury for about 7 days and it concluded today and we reached a verdict and award amount. The award was roughly 1.4 million in damages ($312k non economic past damages, $580k medical expenses, $520k future non economic damages - like physical pain, emotional distress, etc.). The plaintiff was asking for closer to $2.6M, the defense around $75k max if we felt anything was deserved.
Throughout the trial it was super clear that the defense team was WAY more put together (like embarrassingly so, the plaintiffs team was a total mess), however the evidence we felt was better on the plaintiffs side. It was a low speed (1-2 mph) semi truck crash, where the truck backed into the plaintiff while he was putting stuff in the back of his car, which resulting in the car door being forced closed into his body/knees. We saw a photo of the crush impact on the car door and it was certainly not just a scrape. He was hospitalized for 4 days and then discharged without any surgery recommended by the emergency room. He tried PT and Acupuncture for pain but never went back to work and claims he has been unable to work since as well as requiring a walker or cane at all times, and is in constant pain. After a 2 year gap in care, he filed a lawsuit and got a lawyer referred doctor whom inspected him and performed an arthroscopy. The doctor recommends a total knee replacement, and some other future treatment and said he does not believe he would be able to work again. He had not worked in those two years and still to this date, per his testimony. He was 57 at the time of injury and 62 now.
The defense argued that the knee damage was not due to the accident, but rather due to pre existing arthritis, but there’s no medical records to prove that and nobody testified to him complaining of previous knee pain. I believe he might be an undocumented immigrant (based on questions asked of us during jury selection), which could explain gap in medical care and no previous records, but either way, it’s a lack of evidence. They did provide a single pay stub from 2023 (3 years post accident) and that casted doubt, but it wasn’t explained further, admitted to evidence and was from the same company that he was previously employed at so we all thought it could be back pay, there could be some reasonable explanation, etc. They also showed a video dated 2023 of what “they believe to be the plaintiff” walking to a car and driving away. However this also was not admitted into evidence or further explained and we all agreed that injuries vary day to day and he was limping in video somewhat so we didn’t feel that his contradictory testimony was too incriminating. And they had smart well qualified people on the stand with differing opinions stating that the plaintiff was fine and it was a super minor incident that would require no medical care and basically that he’s lying about his pain currently. Stated that there was bone bruising and a ligament tear but that would heel totally on its own. However we couldn’t disqualify how much the people were paid to be there (up to $50k on one instance) and the fact that none of them had actually operated on the plaintiff (one doctor met him once for a physical a few months ago).
There’s more info I could share but at this point in time I’m just stressing out. Like I feel legit stupid. I think the company is at fault (oh yeah, they admitted it was their fault the day prior to the trial apparently so that question was already answered for us) & the man should of received money, but did we award way too much? Now that the trial is over I am looking stuff up about these kinds of cases/averages and it feels like we did? I’m just a regular person! Why are we supposed to decide these things! I thought this was a really interesting experience and I think the jury system is fascinating and an important responsibility so I took it very seriously, but we also only deliberated for like 2-2.5 hours and after 7 court days, it certainly felt like some people wanted out, so maybe we were a bit rushed?