Adventures in jury duty

I took a little hiatus from blogging over the last two months so will be playing catch up over the next few weeks. Although my blog about my adventures in jury duty is a little late, I figure it's better late than never. Enjoy!

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I’ve received a summons for jury duty on at least five occasions in my life. Only once have I ever had to report in person, and even then I was excused after an hour of sitting in the waiting room. When I reported for jury duty in April 2010 I figured I’d be back at work the next day…unfortunately that wasn’t going to happen. They gave all of us in the waiting room 14 page questionnaires to fill out. These would be reviewed by the lawyers and we would find out the next day whether or not we had been selected. As I started filling it out, I had a sinking feeling that I might be picked…..

The case
The plaintiff, whom I’ll refer to as Ms. X, was suing the Archdiocese of San Francisco/Holy Cross and Donohoe and Carrol. The reason? Her family’s tombstone fell and landed on her feet at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma. She was suing for damages and emotional distress. She claimed to have developed complex regional pain syndrome as a result of the accident.

Selecting the jury
I reported for day two of jury duty. The courtroom assistant came out into the hallway and started to name the first twelve jurors. I was lucky Juror #9. I went in and took my seat in the jury box. Those that weren’t picked got to sit in the audience as they had the potential to be called if any of us were excused by counsel.

Several people were obviously trying to get out of jury duty. I briefly thought of ways to get out of being picked but then my conscience got the best of me so I sucked it up and was honest when I was questioned. I was definitely entertained by some of the responses that the other potential jurors gave.

Some of the most entertaining responses came from Juror #10 who was sitting next to me. He was a Frenchman that just could not comprehend why this case was even going to court. According to him, “In Fraaaance, ze family iz responsible for ze maintenance of ze tombstone. It iz very simple- if it falls on you, it iz your fault.” Awesome.

He was excused shortly thereafter


Opening arguments
Ms. X’s attorney went for the “Steel Magnolias” approach with his opening statement. They obviously wanted to pull at our heartstrings as they flashed pictures of Ms. X playing baseball 30 years ago, with her grandchildren, scuba diving, riding a horse, etc. Touching? Yes. Relevant? No. Their claim was that the Archdiocese was responsible for the accident because the base of the monument was tilted which caused it to fall. They claimed that Donohoe and Carrol were negligent because they did not install dowels to pin the monument to the base in case the mortar adhering the two pieces together failed.

The defense attorneys went after the plaintiff’s credibility-they alluded to holes in the plaintiff’s account of the event, issues with her mental health over the years and a history of litigation. The Archdiocese's attorney argued that they did maintain the grounds and did fix known hazards. He also argued that monuments were the property of those who purchased it. Therefore,it would be the owner's responsibility to maintain the stones. Donohoe and Carrol's attorney argued that in 1984 (when the monument was purchased) there was no industry standard regarding the use of dowels in monuments and that 6" wide stones are sturdy enough with mortar alone.

The plaintiff
In her signed deposition, the plaintiff claimed to have been brushing off/cleaning the tombstone before the accident. She said she stood up and was standing about 2 feet in front of the tombstone to “admire her work” when the tombstone suddenly fell over. She then claimed that she attempted to “catch the tombstone” and it fell directly on to both her feet causing her to fall backwards and her head.Her lawyer then proceeded to show us pictures of the area with x’s marking where the plaintiff claimed to have been standing.

Already, lots of things weren’t making sense. If a 300 lb stone was falling, isn’t your gut reaction to take a step back? If something pins your feet down and you fall back, how do you hit your head on the ground before your body has landed? If no force was being exerted on the tombstone, what caused it to fall?


Expert witnesses
During this trial I learned more then I ever wanted to know about:
1) How upright tombstones are made,
2) Regulations (or more the lack thereof) surrounding tombstone
manufacturing in 1984,
3) Complex regional pain syndrome, and
4) Undifferentiated somatoform disorder.

There was an army of expert witnesses that were called to the stand-soil engineers, structural engineers, psychiatrists, psychologists, monument architects, orthopedic surgeons. Both sides called their own witnesses and each side’s witnesses supported their argument. Not surprising since I wouldn’t expect them to put a witness on the stand that didn’t support their side. So, you have two psychiatrists giving differing opinions, two soil engineers giving opposing arguments…and on and on and on. It was also interesting because some of the information that they had the witnesses provide us were not always relevant to the case. For example, the plaintiff’s attorneys had their structural engineer do a force test to show how much force needed to be applied to a monument that was only attached to a base with mortar to make the structure fail. Why would we need this information if Ms. X’s signed deposition said she was just standing there when the monument just fell over, no force applied?

The entire process was pointless to me because you could only take what they were saying with a grain of salt. It reminded me of movie trailers where they show a quote like, “Sieskel and Ebert say this is the movie of the year….” When the entire quote actually was, “Sieskel and Ebert say this is the movie of the year if you like pointless, stupid comedies.”

Cross Examination
I had a feeling that once the defense attorneys got to cross examine Ms. X things would get ugly. It wasn’t as exciting as having Jack Nicholson scream, “You can’t handle the truth!” but there were definitely some charged moments.

Something to seriously consider if you ever plan on suing anyone-be prepared for your entire history to be dredged up and announced to an entire courtroom of complete strangers. The defense brought up everything they could find to discredit Ms. X. She was a hypochondriac with a long history of mental health issues. She was estranged from three of her four daughters, had a history of two prior workman’s comp claims, had sued the State of California and was a recovering alcoholic. Oh…and she had broken her toe at least a year after the tombstone incident, right before she supposedly showed signs and symptoms of complex regional pain syndrome. Important fact that maybe her attorney left out for a reason? Um…yeah.

During Ms. X’s cross examination she conveniently “couldn’t remember” any answers surrounding questions that might discredit her. When questioned about what she was actually doing prior to/when the tombstone fell, she could not answer. At least three different scenarios were presented to the jury regarding the actual accident:
1) In her deposition, she had stated that she had been cleaning the
monument and had just been standing there for a “period of time” when
it just fell over,
2) During her testimony on the stand when her own lawyers were questioning
her she said she could not remember if she maybe been in front of it
and used the tombstone to pull herself up, and
3) When she went to see her doctor, she told her that she was standing in
front of the tombstone when it fell and then she fell back into an open
grave.

In regards to the last “scenario” she later went back to that doctor once she was in litigation and told her she wanted to “correct” what she told her. The defense attorney continued to press her to find out which one was the truth, and when her non-answering of questions didn’t stop him from continuing to push for an asnwer she broke down on the stand and launched into a fit of hysterics.

As the defense presented more and more concrete evidence that discredited Ms. X, what popped in my mind were the words of Chris Rock-“Whatever happened to just…plain….crazy?” All joking aside, I did feel bad for her. It was obvious that she is a sick individual who would benefit from ongoing mental health treatment. Watching the defense attorneys tear her apart on the stand was hard to watch.

Deliberation
Once closing statements were issued, the judge went over the guidelines that had to be used to determine our decision. We were each given a 50 page document that explained this criteria.

There were four parts to our decision:

1) To determine whether or not the Archdiocese/Holy Cross was guilty, we had to find that ALL of the following criteria was met:
i. Ownership-Did the Archdiocese own the land and the monument?
ii. Was the Archdiocese negligent in the maintenance of the property?
iii. Was Ms. X harmed?
iv. Was the Archdiocese’s negligence a substantial factor in causing the harm?
2) To determine whether or not Donohoe and Carrol was guilty, we had to find that ALL of the following criteria was met:
i. Did Donohoe and Carrol make and sell the monument?
ii. Were they negligent or failed to give sufficient warning regarding the possibility of being harmed if an individual used the monument in a foreseeable way.
iii. Was Ms. X harmed by the monument falling on her?
iv. Was their negligence a substantial factor in causing the harm?

3) If we found in favor of the plaintiff for either/both of the defendants, we had to determine if Ms. X’s negligence was a factor. If so, what percent would we hold her accountable? The award would be adjusted accordingly.

4) If we found in favor of the plaintiff for either/both of the defendants, we had to determine the amount of damages-both economic (lost wages, medical bills) and non-economic (pain and suffering).


What was the most maddening part of the deliberation process was that we could base our decision only on the evidence that was provided during the case. No Google… no independent researching of any kind. You are trying to determine which witnesses and experts you either want to believe or disbelieve based on the arguments that were presented. We had to take into account which had been retained by each side, which were unpaid witnesses and whether or not that meant we were potentially only hearing selective information. We had so many questions regarding the things that were not addressed during the course of the trial. When the foundation for the monument was poured, did the cemetery install one or two piers? Was the sinking of the base a factor in the deterioration of the mortar between the foundation and the tombstone? What actually happened that caused the tombstone to fall on Mrs. X? Since all the engineers proved that the monument could only have fallen if force were applied, if the plaintiff had fallen and used the tombstone to catch herself, would a 3/8 inch dowel have been sufficient in preventing the tombstone from falling or would the outcome have been the same?

Ms. X was her own worst enemy in this case because of her inability to accurately recall the events leading up the accident-she couldn’t even confirm her own sworn testimony. Given that she was an unreliable witness, why didn’t her attorneys do more to build a solid case for what would have happened had adequate preventive measures been in place? Part of their argument was that had the die been attached to the base with both mortar and dowels, the accident would not have happened. Therefore, why didn’t they have their expert witness who was a structural engineer do a force test with an exemplar monument with these items in place? Why did she only do force testing with an un-mortared exemplar monument? Based on the evidence presented, her counsel seemed to jump the gun and focus solely on her medical issues. It was as if they thought the case was a done deal and the jury just needed the evidence to award damages. Or, maybe they knew they did not have a solid case and were hoping to cloud our reasoning by appealing to our emotions. Either way it is unfortunate because we will never know if there was additional evidence that would have helped change our decision.

Ultimately, the jury found in favor of both the Archdiocese/Holy Cross and Donohoe and Carrol. The deciding factors were that none of us could say that the plaintiff’s side had:
1. Provided the burden of proof to prove that negligence from either party
was a substantial factor in causing the accident. And,
2. That the monument was used in a foreseeable way.

Without that, there was no way all the criteria could be proved.

What was very interesting during the deliberation process was that all the jurors seemed to be torn. While we didn’t find either defendant guilty based on the criteria that we had to consider, we all did agree that an industry standard should be in place for tombstones and that the cemetery should be more proactive versus reactive to potential hazards. None of us denied that Ms. X was injured and that the tombstone did fall. Unfortunately, we could only render the verdict based on the criteria we were given.

What was probably the most difficult part for everyone was when we went back into the courtroom to deliver the verdict. We knew we had to face Mrs. X. Not only was our verdict read, but then the judge went one by one through each juror to confirm how each of us had voted. I could not watch her face while the verdict was read.

This was definitely an eye opening experience. It was interesting to see firsthand how our legal system works and how there are a lot of flaws in how “justice” is served. With all that said, I hope I NEVER have to serve on a jury again.