Here's another amendment that many of you may not be too familiar with (I sure wasn't). This amendment basically guarantees that in any case that could deprive you of liberty or property you will always have a jury trial. The founders basically saw juries as a way of controlling judges. Juries are less susceptible to forms of coercion as a whole than a single judge is. One interesting thing, though, is that this is one of the amendments in the bill of rights that has NOT been incorporated to the states. This means that the states don't necessarily have to follow this rule.
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This elaborates (albeit, quite humorously) on the reasons that the seventh amendment was put in the constitution. It does give some good insight to the oppression that the colonists faced while under the rule of the king. The judges that they were appointed were always biased, and always ruled out of the king's favor and not their personal rights. Hence, when we made our own country, we made a point to never let that happen. Props for the 300 face at the end. That gave me a good laugh.
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Seventh-Amendment Follies
William Baldwin, 04.11.05, 12:00 AM ET
William Baldwin, 04.11.05, 12:00 AM ET
A drunk driver doing 60mph rear-ends a Ford Escort, killing the driver of the Escort. A jury, handing down a $27 million verdict for the victim's family, decrees that Ford Motor Co. is 40% responsible for this accident and thus on the hook for the whole award.
A 17-year-old falls asleep at the wheel, crosses into oncoming traffic and crashes his SUV head-on into a Dodge Caravan. The driver of the Caravan is killed when the passenger behind her, not wearing a seat belt, plows into her seat. The jury delivers a $49 million punitive-damages award against DaimlerChrysler.
These cases and many more like them are to be found at Overlawyered.com, a collection of tort law absurdities maintained by author and Manhattan Institute fellow Walter Olson. Take a look at the blog and then turn to page 100 to read Daniel Fisher's account of toxic mold litigation. The mold cases center on the scientifically preposterous claim that mold is the cause of many human ailments. Juries rule against mold plaintiffs at least half the time. Still, the mere threat of a jackpot award makes defendants (or their insurers) eager to settle. Similar scientific nonsense was behind the multibillion-dollar breast-implant settlement.
Often a trial judge or appellate court will reject or reduce a steep verdict. A jury slapped General Motors with a $4.9 billion punitive damage award in a case in which a Malibu was rear-ended by a drunk driver. A judge knocked that down to $1.2 billion. But then, if it's accepted that juries sometimes run off the rails, why vest them with so much power in civil cases? Isn't it time to end this solemn farce?
Juries are good at deciding whether an eyewitnesses is credible. They are not so good at judging the complex trade-offs in car engineering. They can't handle epidemiology or Bayesian statistics. Because they do not have to concern themselves with the economic consequences, they can be very casual about adding a few zeroes to a judgment when the plaintiff tugs at their heartstrings.
A proposal: Have judges in civil cases assign to juries narrowly targeted factual questions. Which of these two witnesses is lying? Which of these two drivers is more at fault? Leave the engineering and the economics to judges.
The Seventh Amendment guarantees a right to jury trials in federal civil cases. Let's repeal it and anything in state law that looks like it
A 17-year-old falls asleep at the wheel, crosses into oncoming traffic and crashes his SUV head-on into a Dodge Caravan. The driver of the Caravan is killed when the passenger behind her, not wearing a seat belt, plows into her seat. The jury delivers a $49 million punitive-damages award against DaimlerChrysler.
These cases and many more like them are to be found at Overlawyered.com, a collection of tort law absurdities maintained by author and Manhattan Institute fellow Walter Olson. Take a look at the blog and then turn to page 100 to read Daniel Fisher's account of toxic mold litigation. The mold cases center on the scientifically preposterous claim that mold is the cause of many human ailments. Juries rule against mold plaintiffs at least half the time. Still, the mere threat of a jackpot award makes defendants (or their insurers) eager to settle. Similar scientific nonsense was behind the multibillion-dollar breast-implant settlement.
Often a trial judge or appellate court will reject or reduce a steep verdict. A jury slapped General Motors with a $4.9 billion punitive damage award in a case in which a Malibu was rear-ended by a drunk driver. A judge knocked that down to $1.2 billion. But then, if it's accepted that juries sometimes run off the rails, why vest them with so much power in civil cases? Isn't it time to end this solemn farce?
Juries are good at deciding whether an eyewitnesses is credible. They are not so good at judging the complex trade-offs in car engineering. They can't handle epidemiology or Bayesian statistics. Because they do not have to concern themselves with the economic consequences, they can be very casual about adding a few zeroes to a judgment when the plaintiff tugs at their heartstrings.
A proposal: Have judges in civil cases assign to juries narrowly targeted factual questions. Which of these two witnesses is lying? Which of these two drivers is more at fault? Leave the engineering and the economics to judges.
The Seventh Amendment guarantees a right to jury trials in federal civil cases. Let's repeal it and anything in state law that looks like it
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Here's an article that offers a different perspective of the 7th amendment. While I don't support abolishing the amendment, as Baldwin asserts at the end of his article, he does bring up some interesting points about the potential flaws of juries. It is historically true that many juries often serve very large compensation numbers in certain types of cases (medical malpractice, car companies, insurance companies) almost as if to punish those companies for preconceived notions of wrongdoings. This is indeed a problem, and is worth looking into finding some sort of fix for, as people who own businesses (and corporations) have rights, as well.
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