Message to me

The Texas jury that penalized Merck $253 million for a death attributed to Vioxx was sending a message. I got the message but most business people fail to get it.

The message is clear: judges are lazy and corporate lawyers are even lazier.

Most juries are biased against commerce. Civil juries that can sit for months are even more likely to be biased against commerce and corporations. Why? Simple, the only people who can give up a major part of their life to sit on a jury are people who have no serious work responsibilities and are probably outside the commercial sector.

The solution is clear. Juries, all juries, should work only four days, should start at 7am and finish by 1pm. That way a genuine jury of peers becomes available … managers and self-employed could serve.

Lawyers who don’t force lazy judges to work hours that are convenient for a decent jury are themselves lazy. A lawyer should demand a change of venues until the lawyer finds a judge who will work decent jury hours.

There is another lesson here too, but much less important. Businesses spent money and years getting “junk science” out of the courtroom. That was a waste. Science doesn’t now and never did allow general scientific observation to be directly applied to individual cases. The general can only be applied to the particular as a probability. A scientific expert can only say: ‘there is an 80% probability that this beloved person died because of something that the dastardly giant corporation did wrong.’ And a scientific counter-expert can only be found who would say the probability is ‘less than 50%.’  That leaves 100% up to the emotional judgement of the jury.

We need real juries made up of a real cross-section of our people.

Comments

[Madeleine Carusone]

While I have not read the transcript of the trial in question, I would think that any such trial would include a deep look into and review of the extensive pre-market scientific and clinical trials required by the FDA before the approval of a drug such as Vioxx. What did Merck know about the actions of Vioxx that could lead to such severe and lethal consequences? When did they know it? Was the information kept from the FDA? / or Did the FDA help Merck suppress the information? These are just a few areas and questions that come quickly to mind; I'm sure many more were ferreted out by the plaintiff's attorney. If evidence in response to such questions showed Merck to be culpable, the verdict against Merck is deserved and no surprise. The amount awarded is, of course, wild-eyed.
What's needed is not such eye-popping jury awards (although, of course, those harmed or their families should be generously compensated), but real change in the FDA's new drug approval process and much more careful oversight on the part of the FDA before a new drug is approved for market.

[GreenYoda]

Here in New York State, having a job is not an accepted excuse for getting out of jury duty. You can get two deferrals for your convenience, but the third time they summon you, you must serve.

[nellie lide]

I'm currently sitting on a jury in federal court (the trial has gone on for 6 weeks and counting) I can tell you - 8 of 9 jurors are hard-working employed people (the 9th is retired) and we are a pretty decent cross-section of people. We are all doing our best to cope with work - it's hard. I like your suggestion about a change of hours - that would probably help. But to be honest, I've been impressed by my fellow jurors - everyone takes their role seriously.