The impact of jury instructions on the fusion of liability and compensatory damages.

Abstract

This study examined whether special jury instructions or the bifurcation of liability and compensation decisions would counter the tendency for evidence concerning the defendant's liability to affect damages awards. Mock jurors made liability and award decisions in response to a case description in which the level of defendant responsibility for the plaintiff's injuries and the type or timing of damages instructions were systematically varied. Instructions not to discount awards for uncertainty about the defendant's fault and instructions not to increase awards to punish the defendant's carelessness reduced the impact of the defendant's conduct on awards, while bifurcation did not. Additional findings suggest, at least in the context of the present study, that discounting may be a somewhat more potent process than surcharging. Possible explanations for these effects are discussed.Jurors hearing a tort case are required to determine both the issues of liability and compensatory damages. The law expects the jurors to decide the issue of the defendant's liability without regard to the severity of the plaintiff's losses. For liability, the usual and essential question is: Did the defendant negligently cause the plaintiff's injuries? In addition, once a defendant has been found liable, the amount of damages is to be decided without regard to the extent of the defendant's negligence. In deciding the amount of damages to award, the essential question is: What amount is necessary to restore the plaintiff to the condition he or she was in before the accident? In short, the law treats the issues of liability and compensatory damages as independent of each other (Kalven, 1958;Schwartz, 1994).Research on jury decision-making, however, has shown that these decisions might not be made independently, but that liability evidence might have an impact on compensatory awards. This spillover of liability evidence into damages awards

The gist of juries: Testing a model of damage award decision making.

“…This finding is inconsistent with a legal approach that assumes that jurors reliably separate liability and damages decisions (Wissler, Rector, & Saks, 2001). Liability was not entirely fused with pain and suffering—regressions showed that each contributed unique variance to damage awards.…”

The effects of harassment severity and organizational behavior on damage awards in a hostile work environment sexual harassment case

“…This is similar to how jurors have allocated damages in past research (Wissler et al, 2001) and in some jurisdictions; however, most jurisdictions do not separate out these damage claim amounts. Thus, legal scholars who analyze damages to examine differences in the components of these damage award amounts are forced to use other means (e.g., insurance claims) to try and determine how much of a final award should be allocated to each component of the claim (Vidmar, 1994).…”

“…They provided dollar amounts in each of several categories for both compensatory (i.e., lost wages, future lost wages, medical expenses, future medical expenses, and pain and suffering) and punitive (i.e., to punish the defendant for inappropriate behavior, to deter the defendant from similar behavior in the future, and to deter other companies from similar behavior) damages, similar to the damage award allocations made by participants in past research (e.g., Wissler, Rector, & Saks, 2001) and similar to some jurisdictions (e.g., Maryland, New York) that use special verdicts that allow juries to allocate the amount of damages for each component of the claim (Vidmar, 1994).…”

Audit Sampling Methods And Juror Negligence Awards: An Expectation Gap?

“…Jurors often have difficulty separating the liability assessment from the damage assessment, even when given specific instructions to consider damages based solely on the plaintiff"s injury. This "fusion" of the liability and damage assessments is commonly attributed to jurors discounting the award because of uncertainty about the defendant"s liability (Wissler et al 2001). Research has found that jurors who were doubtful about the defendant"s liability compromised with other jurors on liability in exchange for a reduced award (Hans and Lofquist 1992), and compensatory awards were lower when the defendant"s fault was ambiguous than when the defendant"s fault was clear (MacCoun 1996).…”