Bill Berkshire PC
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Website designed and maintained by Panacea Productions
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Concentrating in personal injury and wrongful
death cases
Dissatisfaction With VerdictQ: I badly injured my back in a car accident and went to a jury trial. The fact that the other driver had insurance was not mentioned in the trial, and the jury didn't award me as much as the insurance company had offered me. The award won't cover my future medical bills. How can this happen? A: Court rules do not allow even the mention of "insurance" during trial; the theory being that if the jury knows a party has insurance, the jury will make a larger award because many people do not like insurance companies. The jury makes a decision about whether the defendant caused the injury and the value of the claim; the jury never hears about any prior negotiations. Juries do what they feel is right. A number of news stories about large verdicts (e.g.. the spilled coffee verdict) have given the impression that juries are running amok. Unfortunately, the media tends to sensationalize large verdicts and usually does not reveal all of the facts which the jury heard. Also, the media does not usually report with the same gusto the $0 or low (and there are many) or reasonable verdicts. You may have experiences some "backlash" as a result of the impression that juries are awarding too much.
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