You won't believe this... Some people are SO INCREDIBLY STUPID! Read on...
February 16, 1999
Squabbling, Jury Panel Managed
To Form Consensus on Negligence
By VANESSA O'CONNELL and PAUL M. BARRETT
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
BROOKLYN, N.Y. -- In a handgun-liability trial that ended here last
week, plaintiffs' lawyers elicited testimony from a parade of experts in
economics, marketing and ballistics to argue that handgun manufacturers
should do more to ensure that weapons don't wind up in criminal hands.
Lawyers for a group of 25 gun makers answered with a procession of
expert witnesses to argue the opposite.
The jurors ignored almost all of it.
Instead, the nine women and two men on the federal-court jury devised
their own quirky system to determine that 15 of the companies distributed
handguns negligently and that three of them should pay damages to one
plaintiff, a 19-year-old boy with a bullet lodged in his brain. The six other
plaintiffs, relatives of people killed by handguns, received no damages. The
jurors' decision marks the first time that the firearms industry has been held
legally responsible for the criminal use of guns.
Sniping and Nausea
This was no slam-dunk verdict. Confused by much of what they heard in
the courtroom, the jurors struggled for six days to reach consensus. "There
was a lot of nit-picking and a lot of going at each other," says juror
Sharlene England. Several jurors complained that the tension caused them
physical pain. Carmen Rivera got so upset that she threw up. Charles
Beatty, a driving instructor, went to the men's room to pray for guidance.
But ultimately, the jurors' commitment to their own formula for determining
liability produced unanimity in favor of the plaintiffs -- even though eight of
the 11 panel members favored the gun makers. The decision is expected
to inject new energy into a growing list of lawsuits filed by cities seeking
reimbursement for hundreds of millions of dollars in public costs related to
gun violence.
Interviews with five of the jurors and with lawyers from both sides who
debriefed some of those jurors, as well as others, after their verdict last
Thursday reveal an unsettling lesson for the gun industry: If some jurors
who are disposed to favor gun makers are willing to compromise on even
a little bit of liability, jury-room bargaining in this nascent litigation war can
favor the antigun side. That creates a powerful incentive for more cities and
individual plaintiffs to take a crack at the industry, hoping to hit a strongly
pro-victim jury eager to award big damages. Defense lawyers in the
Brooklyn case say they plan to appeal the verdict because, among other
things, it is based on improper "horse-trading" by jurors.
An Ominous Irony
The irony that most of the jurors in Brooklyn considered themselves
unsympathetic to the plaintiffs' main witnesses and legal arguments only
makes the message to the industry more ominous. The prospect of years
of costly lawsuits could prompt gun makers to consider following the
example of the cigarette makers that have agreed to pay $246 billion over
25 years to settle suits by state attorneys general.
The 11 jurors in Brooklyn -- a 12th had been dismissed by the judge for
chronic lateness -- settled into the dingy, windowless jury room Feb. 4,
after listening to evidence for four weeks. They took a preliminary
anonymous vote by placing slips of paper in a Maxwell House coffee can.
The result: five for the defendants, three for the plaintiffs, three undecided.
It soon became clear, though, that the vote was 8-3 to reject the core of
the plaintiffs' case. Lead plaintiffs' attorney Elisa Barnes had contended
that scrutiny of federal gun statistics revealed that manufacturers saturate
Southern states that have lax gun regulations, causing thousands of
weapons to flow to criminals. To prove her point, her experts spoke of
"regression analysis" and "standard deviations."
But two jurors, Donna Romano, a 26-year-old statistician with the
Publishers' Clearinghouse sweepstakes firm, and a 28-year-old accountant
with an oil company, dismissed this testimony, telling their fellow jurors that
numbers can be twisted to make almost any point. As a result, the rest of
the jurors "didn't really discuss the statistics for either side. We didn't buy
into it," says Ms. England, 34, a teacher's assistant.
Safety in Suffolk
The jurors similarly agreed to toss out days of testimony by each side's
ballistics experts, who were called to talk about the types of guns used in
each of the seven shootings. The plaintiffs' witness, a retired New York
City police officer, hadn't been thorough enough, they thought. The
objection to the companies' expert, George Krivosta, was that he was an
employee of Suffolk County, N.Y. An assertive 29-year-old nurse who
lives in the same Long Island county told her fellow jurors that Mr.
Krivosta couldn't know what he was talking about because there wasn't
much crime in Suffolk County. In fact, Mr. Krivosta, a nationally known
ballistics specialist, testified for the U.S. government in the Oklahoma City
bombing case. But in Brooklyn, he got no respect.
The nurse, whose first name is Denise but whose last name couldn't be
determined (the court kept official jury records secret), soon emerged as
the most forceful personality on the jury. Her mantra: Gun companies have
some general responsibility for the millions of weapons they produce. She
pointed to two retired officials of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco
and Firearms who had testified that illicit sales at gun shows and by dealers
who operate out of garages or car trunks are major channels for arming
criminals.
Denise "just wouldn't stop talking" about gun shows, recalls Ms. Rivera, a
49-year-old postal clerk who had drifted to the pro-gun side from the
undecided camp. Having rejected much of what the lawyers and experts
had told them, the jurors decided to explore Denise's newfound passion by
examining for themselves some of the primary materials from the trial,
including the manufacturers' contracts with their wholesalers and their
product catalogs. The judge had the documents sent into the jury room.
The documents, which Denise felt would show that gun makers had been
lax in monitoring the distribution of their firearms, only fueled friction. Ed
Remek, 49, a gun owner, said he didn't see how the companies could be
blamed for street crime and couldn't imagine awarding any damages.
Denise attacked his intransigence. "There was a lot of arguing, yelling and
finger-pointing," says Ms. England. There also were muttered jokes about
borrowing the marshal's gun to settle matters.
After nearly four days of this, some jurors were exhausted and disgusted.
Last Tuesday afternoon, they sent a joint note to the judge: "We are all
very upset. We are starting to fight. We cannot reach a decision. We are
emotionally drained and some of us feel physically ill!! Please, please give
us more direction!!"
But Judge Jack Weinstein had no intention of allowing a hung jury. He
called the jurors into the courtroom and told them, "Everybody has
invested, including yourselves, too much in this case to allow you to throw
up your hands prematurely." He sent them home early at 3 p.m. Five of the
pro-defense jurors walked a few blocks to a bar, where they sipped
drinks and talked about how much Denise was annoying them, according
to Ms. Rivera.
A Subtle Shift
But even though eight of the 11 jurors still opposed finding liability, it
became clear that Denise was making progress. At least several of the
pro-defense jurors, including Ms. Romano, Ms. Rivera and Ms. England,
were willing to "buy into" the idea that manufacturers might have been
negligent, with the understanding that there wouldn't be any money
awarded. As these pro-defense jurors understood it, any verdict that
lacked a price tag would be merely symbolic.
Others saw it differently. Mr. Beatty, for example, spoke only of his
determination that all of the plaintiffs should get some money, regardless of
the legal theory agreed upon. As he began calculating what he thought
would be fair amounts, other jurors constructed a unique technique for
determining liability.
Agreeing that at a minimum companies should discourage sales at gun
shows and by dealers who don't have stores, they put each company into
one of three groups. Those whose contracts with wholesalers included
these restrictions from 1989 to 1994, such as Smith & Wesson Corp., a
unit of Britain's Tompkins PLC, and Sturm, Ruger & Co., were found not
negligent. Those whose contracts lacked the restrictions, such as Colt's
Manufacturing Co. and the Beretta U.S.A. Corp. unit of Italy's Beretta
SpA, were found negligent on that basis alone.
The jurors wrestled over what to do with some manufacturers that didn't
have written agreements at all. In the end, the jurors let these companies
off the hook. Some now concede that that didn't make a lot of sense.
The method by which 15 companies were found negligent may have been
simplistic, but "it was the only thing we could come up with," says one
pro-defense juror who asked not to be identified.
The 42-page verdict form designed by Judge Weinstein directed the jurors
to decide whether any negligent companies had directly caused the seven
shootings. For that task, the jurors turned to the pile of product catalogs.
In most of the shootings, the general make of gun -- for example, .38
caliber or nine millimeter -- had been determined, so the jurors looked
through the catalogs to see which of the 15 negligent companies produced
the corresponding gun types. The jurors ignored evidence that showed
how many of each type of gun each company had actually made, as well
as breakdowns of which companies manufactured the guns most frequently
associated with crime.
As the catalog search narrowed the group of liable companies to nine,
feuding intensified, with some jurors announcing that they wouldn't continue
down this path. During one chaotic exchange, Mr. Remek, the gun owner,
fumed that he wouldn't assess damages because doing so would
encourage frivolous litigation, according to another juror who heard his
comment.
This prompted Denise to seek a judicial scolding for Mr. Remek. Last
Thursday morning, without telling any of her colleagues, she handed the
marshal another note for the judge. Ten jurors had "decided to work
together to reach a verdict," she wrote. But "one juror refused because he
or she feels the verdict 'will open the floodgate of lawsuits across the
country.' Could the judge address the importance of focusing on only the
evidence in these seven cases?"
Most of the rest of the jury was outraged; the group had agreed to send
only notes that all had agreed to. Still, Denise's clandestine move worked.
Judge Weinstein brought the jurors into the courtroom and admonished
them to consider only the evidence in the case before them. Neither Denise
nor Mr. Remek could be reached for comment.
When deliberations resumed, the jurors turned to police reports and other
information about the individual shootings. Jurors favoring the gun makers
argued that several plaintiffs had put themselves in harm's way and didn't
deserve damages. But Mr. Beatty singled out Steven Fox, the young man
who survived after being shot in the head by a friend, as someone who
should be compensated because he still had most of his life in front of him.
Mr. Beatty said Mr. Fox deserved at least $8 million.
"It's not your money" that would go to the plaintiffs, Mr. Beatty repeatedly
told his colleagues, several jurors say.
Bidding Downward
Weary and eager to reach a conclusion, the pro-industry jurors, including
Mr. Remek, dropped their opposition to any damages and agreed to
compromise. A round of bidding took the Fox award down to $4 million.
The survivors of the six fatalities would get nothing.
According to their catalogs, only three companies -- Beretta, American
Arms Inc. and the Taurus International Manufacturing Inc. unit of Brazil's
Forjas Taurus SA -- made the type of .25 caliber handgun used in the Fox
shooting. The three companies had a total of about 13% of the handgun
market; the jury awarded Mr. Fox that percentage of $4 million -- about
$520,000.
"When you go on jury duty, everybody has got to compromise a little,"
says Mr. Beatty.
Several of the jurors who favored the gun makers admit to ambivalence
over the result, saying in interviews that they never thought it would be
viewed as a blow to the gun industry. "Really the plaintiffs lost because
they had the burden of proof, and in the end, there wasn't enough there,"
says Ms. Rivera. "I didn't grasp that we had found so many negligent until I
read it in the papers the next day."
February 16, 1999
Squabbling, Jury Panel Managed
To Form Consensus on Negligence
By VANESSA O'CONNELL and PAUL M. BARRETT
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
BROOKLYN, N.Y. -- In a handgun-liability trial that ended here last
week, plaintiffs' lawyers elicited testimony from a parade of experts in
economics, marketing and ballistics to argue that handgun manufacturers
should do more to ensure that weapons don't wind up in criminal hands.
Lawyers for a group of 25 gun makers answered with a procession of
expert witnesses to argue the opposite.
The jurors ignored almost all of it.
Instead, the nine women and two men on the federal-court jury devised
their own quirky system to determine that 15 of the companies distributed
handguns negligently and that three of them should pay damages to one
plaintiff, a 19-year-old boy with a bullet lodged in his brain. The six other
plaintiffs, relatives of people killed by handguns, received no damages. The
jurors' decision marks the first time that the firearms industry has been held
legally responsible for the criminal use of guns.
Sniping and Nausea
This was no slam-dunk verdict. Confused by much of what they heard in
the courtroom, the jurors struggled for six days to reach consensus. "There
was a lot of nit-picking and a lot of going at each other," says juror
Sharlene England. Several jurors complained that the tension caused them
physical pain. Carmen Rivera got so upset that she threw up. Charles
Beatty, a driving instructor, went to the men's room to pray for guidance.
But ultimately, the jurors' commitment to their own formula for determining
liability produced unanimity in favor of the plaintiffs -- even though eight of
the 11 panel members favored the gun makers. The decision is expected
to inject new energy into a growing list of lawsuits filed by cities seeking
reimbursement for hundreds of millions of dollars in public costs related to
gun violence.
Interviews with five of the jurors and with lawyers from both sides who
debriefed some of those jurors, as well as others, after their verdict last
Thursday reveal an unsettling lesson for the gun industry: If some jurors
who are disposed to favor gun makers are willing to compromise on even
a little bit of liability, jury-room bargaining in this nascent litigation war can
favor the antigun side. That creates a powerful incentive for more cities and
individual plaintiffs to take a crack at the industry, hoping to hit a strongly
pro-victim jury eager to award big damages. Defense lawyers in the
Brooklyn case say they plan to appeal the verdict because, among other
things, it is based on improper "horse-trading" by jurors.
An Ominous Irony
The irony that most of the jurors in Brooklyn considered themselves
unsympathetic to the plaintiffs' main witnesses and legal arguments only
makes the message to the industry more ominous. The prospect of years
of costly lawsuits could prompt gun makers to consider following the
example of the cigarette makers that have agreed to pay $246 billion over
25 years to settle suits by state attorneys general.
The 11 jurors in Brooklyn -- a 12th had been dismissed by the judge for
chronic lateness -- settled into the dingy, windowless jury room Feb. 4,
after listening to evidence for four weeks. They took a preliminary
anonymous vote by placing slips of paper in a Maxwell House coffee can.
The result: five for the defendants, three for the plaintiffs, three undecided.
It soon became clear, though, that the vote was 8-3 to reject the core of
the plaintiffs' case. Lead plaintiffs' attorney Elisa Barnes had contended
that scrutiny of federal gun statistics revealed that manufacturers saturate
Southern states that have lax gun regulations, causing thousands of
weapons to flow to criminals. To prove her point, her experts spoke of
"regression analysis" and "standard deviations."
But two jurors, Donna Romano, a 26-year-old statistician with the
Publishers' Clearinghouse sweepstakes firm, and a 28-year-old accountant
with an oil company, dismissed this testimony, telling their fellow jurors that
numbers can be twisted to make almost any point. As a result, the rest of
the jurors "didn't really discuss the statistics for either side. We didn't buy
into it," says Ms. England, 34, a teacher's assistant.
Safety in Suffolk
The jurors similarly agreed to toss out days of testimony by each side's
ballistics experts, who were called to talk about the types of guns used in
each of the seven shootings. The plaintiffs' witness, a retired New York
City police officer, hadn't been thorough enough, they thought. The
objection to the companies' expert, George Krivosta, was that he was an
employee of Suffolk County, N.Y. An assertive 29-year-old nurse who
lives in the same Long Island county told her fellow jurors that Mr.
Krivosta couldn't know what he was talking about because there wasn't
much crime in Suffolk County. In fact, Mr. Krivosta, a nationally known
ballistics specialist, testified for the U.S. government in the Oklahoma City
bombing case. But in Brooklyn, he got no respect.
The nurse, whose first name is Denise but whose last name couldn't be
determined (the court kept official jury records secret), soon emerged as
the most forceful personality on the jury. Her mantra: Gun companies have
some general responsibility for the millions of weapons they produce. She
pointed to two retired officials of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco
and Firearms who had testified that illicit sales at gun shows and by dealers
who operate out of garages or car trunks are major channels for arming
criminals.
Denise "just wouldn't stop talking" about gun shows, recalls Ms. Rivera, a
49-year-old postal clerk who had drifted to the pro-gun side from the
undecided camp. Having rejected much of what the lawyers and experts
had told them, the jurors decided to explore Denise's newfound passion by
examining for themselves some of the primary materials from the trial,
including the manufacturers' contracts with their wholesalers and their
product catalogs. The judge had the documents sent into the jury room.
The documents, which Denise felt would show that gun makers had been
lax in monitoring the distribution of their firearms, only fueled friction. Ed
Remek, 49, a gun owner, said he didn't see how the companies could be
blamed for street crime and couldn't imagine awarding any damages.
Denise attacked his intransigence. "There was a lot of arguing, yelling and
finger-pointing," says Ms. England. There also were muttered jokes about
borrowing the marshal's gun to settle matters.
After nearly four days of this, some jurors were exhausted and disgusted.
Last Tuesday afternoon, they sent a joint note to the judge: "We are all
very upset. We are starting to fight. We cannot reach a decision. We are
emotionally drained and some of us feel physically ill!! Please, please give
us more direction!!"
But Judge Jack Weinstein had no intention of allowing a hung jury. He
called the jurors into the courtroom and told them, "Everybody has
invested, including yourselves, too much in this case to allow you to throw
up your hands prematurely." He sent them home early at 3 p.m. Five of the
pro-defense jurors walked a few blocks to a bar, where they sipped
drinks and talked about how much Denise was annoying them, according
to Ms. Rivera.
A Subtle Shift
But even though eight of the 11 jurors still opposed finding liability, it
became clear that Denise was making progress. At least several of the
pro-defense jurors, including Ms. Romano, Ms. Rivera and Ms. England,
were willing to "buy into" the idea that manufacturers might have been
negligent, with the understanding that there wouldn't be any money
awarded. As these pro-defense jurors understood it, any verdict that
lacked a price tag would be merely symbolic.
Others saw it differently. Mr. Beatty, for example, spoke only of his
determination that all of the plaintiffs should get some money, regardless of
the legal theory agreed upon. As he began calculating what he thought
would be fair amounts, other jurors constructed a unique technique for
determining liability.
Agreeing that at a minimum companies should discourage sales at gun
shows and by dealers who don't have stores, they put each company into
one of three groups. Those whose contracts with wholesalers included
these restrictions from 1989 to 1994, such as Smith & Wesson Corp., a
unit of Britain's Tompkins PLC, and Sturm, Ruger & Co., were found not
negligent. Those whose contracts lacked the restrictions, such as Colt's
Manufacturing Co. and the Beretta U.S.A. Corp. unit of Italy's Beretta
SpA, were found negligent on that basis alone.
The jurors wrestled over what to do with some manufacturers that didn't
have written agreements at all. In the end, the jurors let these companies
off the hook. Some now concede that that didn't make a lot of sense.
The method by which 15 companies were found negligent may have been
simplistic, but "it was the only thing we could come up with," says one
pro-defense juror who asked not to be identified.
The 42-page verdict form designed by Judge Weinstein directed the jurors
to decide whether any negligent companies had directly caused the seven
shootings. For that task, the jurors turned to the pile of product catalogs.
In most of the shootings, the general make of gun -- for example, .38
caliber or nine millimeter -- had been determined, so the jurors looked
through the catalogs to see which of the 15 negligent companies produced
the corresponding gun types. The jurors ignored evidence that showed
how many of each type of gun each company had actually made, as well
as breakdowns of which companies manufactured the guns most frequently
associated with crime.
As the catalog search narrowed the group of liable companies to nine,
feuding intensified, with some jurors announcing that they wouldn't continue
down this path. During one chaotic exchange, Mr. Remek, the gun owner,
fumed that he wouldn't assess damages because doing so would
encourage frivolous litigation, according to another juror who heard his
comment.
This prompted Denise to seek a judicial scolding for Mr. Remek. Last
Thursday morning, without telling any of her colleagues, she handed the
marshal another note for the judge. Ten jurors had "decided to work
together to reach a verdict," she wrote. But "one juror refused because he
or she feels the verdict 'will open the floodgate of lawsuits across the
country.' Could the judge address the importance of focusing on only the
evidence in these seven cases?"
Most of the rest of the jury was outraged; the group had agreed to send
only notes that all had agreed to. Still, Denise's clandestine move worked.
Judge Weinstein brought the jurors into the courtroom and admonished
them to consider only the evidence in the case before them. Neither Denise
nor Mr. Remek could be reached for comment.
When deliberations resumed, the jurors turned to police reports and other
information about the individual shootings. Jurors favoring the gun makers
argued that several plaintiffs had put themselves in harm's way and didn't
deserve damages. But Mr. Beatty singled out Steven Fox, the young man
who survived after being shot in the head by a friend, as someone who
should be compensated because he still had most of his life in front of him.
Mr. Beatty said Mr. Fox deserved at least $8 million.
"It's not your money" that would go to the plaintiffs, Mr. Beatty repeatedly
told his colleagues, several jurors say.
Bidding Downward
Weary and eager to reach a conclusion, the pro-industry jurors, including
Mr. Remek, dropped their opposition to any damages and agreed to
compromise. A round of bidding took the Fox award down to $4 million.
The survivors of the six fatalities would get nothing.
According to their catalogs, only three companies -- Beretta, American
Arms Inc. and the Taurus International Manufacturing Inc. unit of Brazil's
Forjas Taurus SA -- made the type of .25 caliber handgun used in the Fox
shooting. The three companies had a total of about 13% of the handgun
market; the jury awarded Mr. Fox that percentage of $4 million -- about
$520,000.
"When you go on jury duty, everybody has got to compromise a little,"
says Mr. Beatty.
Several of the jurors who favored the gun makers admit to ambivalence
over the result, saying in interviews that they never thought it would be
viewed as a blow to the gun industry. "Really the plaintiffs lost because
they had the burden of proof, and in the end, there wasn't enough there,"
says Ms. Rivera. "I didn't grasp that we had found so many negligent until I
read it in the papers the next day."
). As a New Yorker I am ashamed of my fellow New Yorkers on this Jury who apparently were bullied by a Loud Mouthed Bimbo. As a Business owner I have always avoided Jury duty as it would destroy my business to be away for any lengthy period. But I have noticed that juries seem to be populated by unemployable people and low level government employees neither of which group seems to have any common sense. The last time I was called to jury duty I went and was assigned to a jury due to a new change in the State laws. The Lawyers almost wet their pants to have a self employed businessman on the jury. Fortunately the parties settled out of court and I only had to spend two days. I really think the pool of jurors is the problem and those of US who have always skated will have to do our part before the legal system goes into the toilet.