I realized that other than posting about my initial jury duty case, I never wrote more about it. The case lasted for 9 days and I enjoyed the experience of every one of them.
Some background: As I previously mentioned, the plaintiff was a special ed teacher in her 40's. The doctor had performed a hysterectomy and removal of endimetriol tissue. Turns out she blew a hole in her bowel on the first day home recovering. After healing from that, she returned to the same doctor for reversal of a colostomy, and removal of scaring and a tummy tuck, which he did with another physician. Then she decided to sue. Why she was suing, after she continued to see him for other procedures, was beyond me.
So we heard the doctor's testimony, an expert witness for the plaintiff, the plaintiff herself (can you say animated drama queen?), and her husband (a dork if I ever saw one...he took his oath with one hand raised while scratching his head with the other hand).
The attorneys reviewed the facts of the case repeatedly. By the time we were done, I knew all the timeliness by heart, dates, times, details. I knew more about perforated bowels than I cared to know. I knew what the plaintiff ate before she blew her bowel out. I even knew how she blew her bowel out. I thought the plaintiff's attorney was going to fall down and weep with his final argument. I watched the case like a chess match, contemplating what the next move would be.
Next it was our turn to deliberate. This was the hardest part. I felt pretty strongly by the end of the trial but I was concerned that we may not all agree. Surprisingly, we were pretty much on the same page. We all agreed that she was just after the money and that if anyone screwed up, it was the hospital ER staff, not the physician. I was impressed with my fellow jurors. Some were more generous with the money. One felt that we should give the plaintiff extra money because it was Christmas-time. Our final verdict was that we found the doctor 0% responsible and the hospital 100% responsible. This case was the woman vs' the doctor so she would get nothing from our case. I felt good, like justice worked as it should. After our decision, and objections by the plaintiff's attorney because we said that the doctor was responsible for some negligence but 0% responsible in our final decision, we were done. To elaborate, our deliberations included a packet that we had to complete. In the packet were questions such as did we think the doctor did or did not react to the patients status in a timely manner. After answering all the questions, our directions were that if we answered no to specific numbered questions, the doctor had 0% responsibility. So we did think he could have acted more diligently, yet we didn't think that this contributed to her ultimate problem.
All in all, it was a wonderful learning experience. Please, don't hesitate to serve if you have the opportunity. One hears so many bad things about jury duty. My experience was excellent.
