Juries and Awards

MULTIMILLION DOLLAR awards for damages granted by juries have garnered sensationalist headlines in the past decades. Usually resulting from product liability, workplace injury, and medical malpractice suits launched by individuals against corporations, these cases have cast much negative light on harmful business practices in the United States.

Lobbyists for corporations and allied politicians claim that juries are systematically biased toward the plaintiffs and unfairly award huge monetary damages solely to penalize corporate America. They argue further that such legal restrictions have affected the competitiveness of American business.

The most exhaustive empirical research to date, however, has demonstrated that there is no evidence of systematic jury bias nor that monetary damages awarded to plaintiffs has decreased the profitability of American business. Indeed, there is a strong case [Page 465]to be made, as Stephen Daniels and Joanne Martin contend, that “Punitive damages provide the only practical means of sanctioning large and flourishing economic actors in the face of weak administrative controls and the limits of criminal justice.” An historical overview of juries and awards illustrates, moreover, that changing conceptions of liability for legal wrongdoings and monetary damages awarded by juries reflect shifting social and political attitudes and practices in society at large.

Civil cases involving juries and monetary damages fall under the general rubric of tort law, the law of civil wrongs. Tort law encompasses the legal concepts of liability and negligence. Liability can generally be defined as accountability and responsibility to other persons. Negligence involves a notion of failing to take care where it was reasonable to assume that injury would be caused. Both legal infractions are enforceable by civil and, in some cases, criminal sanctions. Under liability rules, plaintiffs usually only have to show that they were harmed by the defendant's conduct. Negligence laws are stricter and usually require plaintiffs to prove “unreasonable conduct” on the defendant's part.

Civil juries may award compulsory damages, that is, compensation for money, wages, property or emotional suffering lost due to liability or negligence on the part of the accused; and punitive damages, an extra award that penalizes the accused party in an effort to deter future illegal actions. The concepts of liability, negligence, and tort law, in general, therefore are highly ambiguous and inexact. What exactly constitutes accountability and responsibility is a question that historically has been decided by the context of specific political, legislative, and judicial decisions.