Presenting Technical Material to a Jury
| Publication year | 1980 |
| Pages | 2371 |
1980, November, Pg. 2371. Presenting Technical Material to a Jury
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A recent column reviewed current decisions that held that a jury trial was not guaranteed when the issues were so complex as to be beyond the practical abilities and limitations of juries.(fn1) The argument in favor of taking complex cases away from juries is based upon an assumption of fact that jurors cannot comprehend technical or complex data.(fn2)
This factual assumption requires that courts address the legal issue of the applicability of the Seventh Amendment jury guarantee to complex trials. If the jury cannot cope with complex factual material, then the trial may not be fair[T]heir past experience had not prepared them to decide a case involving technical and financial questions of the highest order.(fn3)
It is not the purpose of this column to explore the Seventh Amendment issue, other than to note briefly some additional source materials. Rather, the thrust of this column is to consider the underlying factual assumption that jurors cannot comprehend complex cases and to suggest ways to assist these jurors.
Regarding the Seventh Amendment issue, Judge Alvin Rubin of the Fifth Circuit is presently chairing a committee which is studying jury alternatives in protracted and complex litigation. The work of Judge Rubin's committee may have important implications for the future of the jury system. The question of the use of juries in complex cases may be one of the most important issues facing the trial bar.
Among the important articles written on the subject in recent years is Professor Morris S. Arnold's work,(fn4) which was commissioned by counsel for the plaintiffs in Zenith Radio Corp. v. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co.(fn5) This article reviews both American and English sources for evidence of an Eighteenth or Nineteenth Century belief that complexity was a ground for the exercise of equitable jurisdiction, thus removing the case from the jury.
Based upon his review of historical materials, Professor Arnold concluded that there is "no good historical foundation for the argument that plaintiffs may be denied the right to a jury trial because their cases are complex."(fn6) However, Lord Devlin reached just the opposite conclusion following his historical review commissioned by counsel for IBM in connection with its protracted antitrust litigation.(fn7)
A more practical argument in defense of the use of juries in complex cases was made by Ungar and Mann.(fn8) Quoting Alexander
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Hamilton,(fn9) the authors argue that juries should be retained as a security against corruption. In this instance corruption should be read broadly to include bias, prejudice and personal animosity. The problem of judicial hostility is faced frequently and recent decisions underscore the ineffectiveness of existing means to achieve judicial disqualification.(fn10)
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