U.S. Jurors Biased Against Corporations - Survey
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Potential jurors often mistrust corporations and think they must impose billions of dollars in punitive damages to send them a clear message, according to survey results released on Friday.
The survey, set to appear on Monday in the weekly National Law Journal, showed that 75.6 percent of potential jurors think ''executives of big companies often try to cover up the harm they do.''
Some 1,000 people were questioned by telephone Sept. 22-24 in the poll conducted by the trade journal and DecisionQuest, a jury and trial consulting firm.
``This data supports the cynicism that I see every day with real jurors in real courtrooms,'' said David Davis, senior vice president of DecisionQuest.
``Although jurors acknowledge that they cannot be impartial they believe that they are being fair by imposing big punitive damages against big corporations.''
In July, a Florida jury imposed a record $145 billion verdict against the tobacco industry in a class action suit brought on behalf of sick smokers. On Monday a Miami judge signed off on the jury verdict and rejected the defendants' appeals including one to reduce the award.
The survey findings showed that 73 percent of the participants were aware of that verdict.
The poll also showed that 34 percent of the participants said they could not be impartial in a case involving a tobacco company. Thirty-three percent said they could not be impartial in a case involving an HMO, 31 percent if a gun maker was involved and 24 percent if a tire manufacturer was involved.
Thirty percent of respondents said that for a jury to send an effective message to a big corporation it needs to award billions of dollars in damages. Of these respondents, 44 percent of those aged 18-24 agreed with that statement.
More than a third said they had a bias in favor of an employee who sues an employer for sexual harassment or racial discrimination.
Nearly two-thirds of the potential jurors surveyed said they were aware their damage awards were likely to be reduced during the appeals process.
Of the survey participants, 54.3 percent had been called for jury duty and of those, 39.2 percent served on a jury. The survey had a 3 percent margin of error.