When juries send messages. (Society).(Brief Article)

Mark Curriden, "Power of 12," in ABA Journal (August 2001), American Bar Association, 750 North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60611

In January 2000, a jury in Delray Beach, Florida found Humana, a health-maintenance organization, guilty of failing to provide adequate care to a nine-year-old who died from symptoms of cerebral palsy. The angry jury awarded the child's family $79.6 million (an amount that's being appealed). "We decided we had to send a message that would get not only Humana's attention but the attention of every HMO out there," says juror Diane Leininger.

The Florida case, says Mark Curriden, a reporter for the Dallas Morning News, is not unusual. In the past few years, tobacco companies, drug companies, gun manufacturers, the Catholic Church, and other companies and organizations have been socked with enormous judgments from juries eager to punish. "Today's jurors come to court angry and full of biases, and they are exacting revenge," declares American Tort Reform Association general counsel Victor Schwartz.

The first modern instance of a jury "sending a message" came in 1962, when television and radio commentator John Henry Faulk sued Aware, Inc., a group that accused Faulk of being a communist sympathizer. Faulk sued, and won $3.5 million, the largest jury settlement up to that time.

But most juries stayed relatively moderate in their actions until 1982, when Texas trial lawyer Scottie Baldwin won a $1 million lawsuit against asbestos makers Johns-Manville and Raybestos-Manhattan for his ...