What Jurors Think of Your Personal Injury Case

The Deliberations Blog provided a link to a survey from Vox.com. The question from the survey was “Have you ever served on a jury? What was your experience?”

I think the results from the personal injury cases were fascinating:

“It was a minor car accident involving a taxi driver and the teenage girl that hit him. He was trying to prove that she caused his TMJ problem. In the end we rewarded him with the money for his medical bills.” Interesting. Sounds like the jury didn’t necessarily buy the allegation that the accident caused the injury, so they compromised with medical bills only.

The Secret Illinois Law that “The Man” Doesn’t Want Jurors to Know About

The “Lost Chance” doctrine allows a medical malpractice plaintiff to prove proximate cause by showing that the defendant’s negligent conduct either increased the risk of harm or lessened the effectiveness of treatment. Holton v. Memorial Hosp., 176 Ill.2d 95, 111, 679 N.E.2d 1202, 1209 (1997). This is true even if the chance of recovery would be less than 50%.

Don’t tell the jury though. A number of cases don’t allow a special instruction on the lost chance doctrine. Here is an amazingly important piece of the law that the judge won’t tell the jury about. The cases hold that you, as a plaintiff’s attorney, can tell the jury about the doctrine. Never mind the fact that pattern instruction 1.01 tells jurors that the law is contained in the instructions and to disregard all other statements by attorneys.

This is probably the most bizarre restriction I’ve seen, and really needs to be changed. Fight the power.

(Howard Zimmerle is an accident attorney in Rock Island, and Moline Illinois)

Off to the AAJ Conference in Chicago!

Well folks, I’m off to the American Association for Justice conference in Chicago… don’t expect any new posts until I get back.

If you read this, and see me in Chicago, introduce yourself.