CIVIL PROCEDURE
LAW and FACT at TRIAL: ROLES of JURY, JUDGE and PARTIES
I. FACTUAL UNCERTAINTY
CENTRAL PROBLEM: FACT FINDING
Find it by:
Preponderance of the Evidence- (whether facts are more probably true than false) weighted scales…absolute certainty not required.
Ex: 5 see one thing and 3 see another thing- can’t rule the way that the 5 see…
can trust some more than others.
· Do I understand what person is telling me
· Identify witnesses capacity to observe
(can he tell what color it is or is he colorblind?)
· Opportunity to observe
(was sun shining?)
· Do I think the witness is honestly conveying or is he trying to mislead
(what is witness’s relationship?)
· Memory
(memory fades or can be manipulated)
PROBABILITY
· Don’t use probabilities like .9 or .8
· It’s the quality of evidence that counts…Can’t just have probabilities…Parties must give satisfactory evidence This is the Burden of Production
· People agst Collins (Supp)…know there are a female and male multiracial robber and a blue van
o Did whoever did this have these characteristics?- You need to tie these characteristics to the defendant…You have to have witness testimony or video camera
o No evidence in support of probability factors selected- witness only assumed probability factors- could be wrong…in what area. have to define the size of the suspect population.
o Even if you have real statistics that still doesn’t match up to the more probable than not standard
· At Civil, don’t want someone not connected to event to pay money so we’re prepared to run the mistake of mistake
· …So Burden is on plaintiff to persuade
· Bus example: The defendants (the bus company) have greater access to the buses and producing evidence that it wasn’t that bus. should SHIFT THE BURDEN to the bus company because they have the greatest access to information or evidence
· Product Liability ex:
o Didn’t say who conducted the study. Bias? Also, is person a highschooler or a professional doing the study. Also bias in who chooses to report.
· Tire ex:
o If rule for tire installer then in the future it’ll be convenient to lose a tire
o Not all tire installers are the same. some have more experience
o Did they ever have accidents like this before
o 1 piece of circumstantial evidence is not enough for a direct link.
· Teamsters Ex:
o What’s desirable to whom? maybe blacks didn’t want to be line drivers
o Right after Civil Rights Act so maybe they were all white before so these numbers represent great strides.
o Are these numbers comparable to the rest of the industry?
o Need to consider pool of available applicants, qualifications, seniority
o Supreme Ct says the numbers alone can do it. Stats don’t control, they permit an explanation.
· LEAST COST AVOIDER-fence ex:
o Who had least cost/availability to fix the fence?
o Widow leaves gate open all t time.
o Comparative Responsibility- split the burden. Can allocate responsibility by percents.
§ If got 70% of damages if u convinced jury 70% then it’s a bad thing. You wouldn’t put as much effort in as a lawyer, plaintiff, jury.
§ Provides more incentive to settle.
§ ALL OR NOTHING provides incentive to take it seriously. System would never be right if it wasn’t ALL OR NOTHING.
§ TX v Price- in this appeal defendants say that there was no evidence to support the jury’s findings and they also say that if the evidence was insufficient to support the verdict. The finding was against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence. testimony of injured worker does not agree with that of injured worker’s doctor. However, the jury can determine the weight to be given to evidence and to reconcile conflicts or inconsistencies. The matter under consideration was not one for experts and skilled witnesses alone. The fact that injured man’s testimony was in conflict with expert testimony concerning the extent of his disability did not under the circumstances, render it insufficient to support the verdict.
If scales are equal you find for the party that does not have the burden of proof
o POE does not mean that w/everything there is 50+ probability
o If I’m wrong in not finding for widow she only had 1 cow
o If I’m wrong in not finding for railroad then not as costly to them
o These are wrong ways of deciding but that’s how some cts/juries decide
· Workmen’s Compensation:
o absolute liability- u collect if u get injured on job
o Tradeoff- benefits only modest to workers (don’t get a lot of $)
II. JURY’S FACT INPUT
Texas Employer’s v Price:
TX employer says he’s only partially injured but jury finds total permanent
disabilit
hat a nonmember of a jury perceives something wrong is low. Jury is in their own lil room.
· A conscience-stricken juror- juror that went along with the verdict b/c convinced to can’t have morning after regret and complain about it
· Harassing of jurors (can’t buy off jurors)
· External prejudicial info-
o jurors that go off by themselves and measure the scene of the accident
o juror that looks up definition of injury or back injury then reports back to jurors the next day. His info could be flat wrong
o court can tell jurors that they can’t consider as evidence any personal knowledge you had of the scene. internal prejudicial info- not ruled out tho in 606(b)
o plaintiff talks about and offers evidence about employability…then jurors can talk about it – not external but if plaintiff offers no evidence of employability and doesn’t even talk about it. jury can ask about it in court.
o If one juror goes and looks at scene but doesn’t talk about it w/anyone looks like can’t use it (can’t testify) b/c in 1st part of rule with prejudicial info it talks about prejudicial info; 2nd part the rule says “any juror”
o Tanner v US- if juror says they saw a fellow juror using marijuana this is not an outside influence in 606b. Substance abuse that leads to incompetence may be admissible but not directly in rule
· Iowa Rule- jurors can testify to things that happened openly and overtly in
the jury room (as opposed to what someone is thinking). – This is against
commonlaw rule
· Federal Rules of Evidence apply only to federal courts. Not binding on state courts. That’s why Iowa can have the Iowa Rule. A lot of state courts adopt federal law 606b.
· Federal rule won’t permit jury testimony of quotient verdict- he thinks quotient verdict is ok
· Federal rule- unless the parties agree to a non-unanimous verdict, it has to be unanimous
