My sister says that after 40 it's just patch patch patch! I agree! So getting a once over at the Dr.'s office and she'd been held over in surgery and was running late. Like an hour late! I sat there and listened/watched as people chatted/texted etc. on their modern devices.
It reminded me of my experience on a jury trial not to long ago. There were 20 of us in a holding pen room for quite awhile. 19 had cell phones on vibrate and the room was abuzz. It wasn't a large room so the sound seemed really magnified.
I was shocked to be selected as the 6th juror as they took absolutely no interest in me. The case was about a woman seeking payback for someone rear-ending her. The Plaintiff was in a construction zone, cars behind her, started to move ahead, thought she saw a truck going to pass in front of her, hit her brakes, Defendant's car bumped her back bumper.
Plaintiff had her 10 year old son with her, her back was injured, she was in constant pain. The Plaintiff was suing for damages including the fact that her 10 year old son, who was in the car with her, was destined to be an international soccer star & make millions- because he told her he wanted to do that feat. He needed to be recompensed for the loss of his dream. She also was wanting $$ because her life as she knew it would never be the same. She could no longer Zumba although her chiropractor had cleared her to attend the class she was now living in fear and couldn't do it. She couldn't garden like she had before. She was just starting to do housework. She couldn't volunteer at her Church. I forget the 5th "loss" but it was similar.
Our panel of 6 had to decide the dollar amount that she and her son would get from the Defendant.
The trial was held in Grandview.
The people on the jury were such nice people. 4 men and 2 women.
It was so interesting to me and I was thinking of scriptures and of Elder Packer's powerful talk on Justice and Mercy. Someone said that we had to be fair in our judgement. I thought about the scripture on righteous judgement. I thought about we were not in the place of dispensing mercy. We did not have that power.
We chose a wonderful foreman, he polled all of us, and we all were pretty much on the same page. We looked at all the evidence and Dr. charts etc. It was so interesting. We took each item with request and measured it against the evidence. We had it down to the penny on what we felt was fair.
On the part of her feeling her life would never be the same with the Zumba class out etc. The other female on our panel was a mother of two young children....her reason for desiring to give her no $ in that category was she felt- it would be a loss if she could never hold her son or play with him or go to his soccer games etc. Anyhow we all agreed the 5 things that she mentioned over and over were of no consequence and we all felt zero $ except for one man.
He shared that when he goes to a restaurant he always tips. Always. If the service is good he is generous. If the service is bad he leaves a quarter! He said that way there is no doubt that he overlooked a tip. It lets them know that they did not do their job. He wanted to pay some small fee like $1!! He felt both attorneys needed a little ruler slap on the hand as they should not have asked for any money for such silly things much less 1000's.
We ended up giving her $100 for each of her 5 losses. total $500.
I don't remember all the categories and what we ended up with exactly for total settlement but it was fair. Each Attorney was surprised and none of us cared to talk with them afterwards and explain our logic but we worked on it for a couple of hours. In our hearts we felt we'd been fair.
Yes. I can talk about it all I want. the judge said so.
Speaking of the judge. This was news to me. Washington has a law -after both lawyers are finished with their examination, of each witness, then the jurors can ask questions of the witness!!! (the attorneys can't ask anymore questions) Amazing! so new that the Judge would forget to ask us if we have any questions. We would remind him by raising our hands before the witness left the stand.
Any juror can write out any questions/questions, the bailiff picks them up, takes to judge, both attorney's approach the bench, Judge decided what can be asked. Attorney's have no power to decide. they may not want one but only the judge decides. The judge reminds the witness they are under oath, ask the question/questions and they answer.
I went into detective mode and noticed that the lady had on heels. not high ones but heels. nothing orthopedic looking. Hmmmm.
Her best friend had testified that she knew she was hurting because she would ask her for medicine.
aha! people with severe back pain have their own medicine.
I asked the Plaintiff how long she could sit without pain and she answered....30 minutes. We'd been sitting for 2 days and she'd never moved or asked to stand up or anything! Gong!
I also asked her what kind of Rx for the pain she takes and she responded...Tylenol.
It was really exciting because when a juror asks a witness a question, they are under oath on the stand and it counts as evidence! This give the jurors a chance to ask things that you might get back in the room for deliberations and wonder about something but because it wasn't said on the witness stand you can't guess about it. Even if it seems obvious.
Isn't that an interesting twist? Did you know that bit of trivia...jurors asking witness questions? Now you do!
The Gospel perspective just enters into every phase of my life. Even Jury Duty.
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