Juror Judgments in Civil Cases: Effects of Plaintiff's Requests and Plaintiff's Identity on Punitive Damage Awards

Two experiments were conducted to study the manner in which civil jurors assess punitive damage awards. Jury-eligible citizens were shown a videotaped summary of an environmental damage lawsuit and told that the defendant had already paid compensatory damages. They were asked to judge liability for punitive damages and, if damages were to be assessed, to assign a dollar award. Three independent variables were manipulated in the case materials: the dollar amounts that were explicitly requested by the plaintiffs in their closing arguments to the jury, the geographical location of the defendant corporation, and the location of the lead plaintiff. Consistent with prior findings of anchor effects on judgments, we found that the plaintiffs requested award values had a dramatic effect on awards: the higher the request, the higher the awards. We also found that local plaintiffs were awarded more than were geographically remote plaintiffs, while the location of the defendant company did not have reliable effects on the awards. The implications of these results for procedures in civil trials and for theories of juror decision making are discussed.     

Punitive Damage Decision Making: The Decisions of Citizens and Trial Court Judges

Some states have allocated the authority to determine the amount of punitive damages to judges rather than to juries. This study explored the determination of damages by jury-eligible citizens and trial court judges. The punitive damage awards of both groups were of similar magnitude and variability. The compensatory damages of jurors were marginally lower but, in some conditions, were more variable than the compensatory damage awards of judges. Both groups appropriately utilized information about both the actual and potential severity of the harm to the plaintiff in determining punitive damages and used only the actual severity of the injury in determining compensatory damages. The punitive damage awards of both groups were influenced by the wealth of the defendant, but the compensatory damage awards of judges were marginally more influenced by defendant wealth than those of citizens. The results are discussed in the context of proposals for punitive damages reform.     

Juries and Unpredictability in Products Liability Damage Awards

The size and variability of jury damage awards in tort cases has been a contentious issue for over a decade. Nevertheless, there has been little empirical work addressing the relationship between the size of jury awards to products liability victims and their compensable losses. This paper examines this relationship using a sample of California cases. A compensatory model of damages based on plaintiff, injury, and case characteristics explains a large proportion of the variance in damage awards suggesting that juries rely heavily on monetary and non-monetary loss estimates in determining damages. The evidence argues against charges of unpredictability, and indicates undercompensation on average.     

Goal Conflict in Juror Assessments of Compensatory and Punitive Damages

Recent tort reform debates have been hindered by a lack of knowledge of how jurors assess damages. Two studies investigated whether jurors are able to appropriately compartmentalize compensatory and punitive damages. In Study 1, mock jurors read a trial summary and were asked to assess compensatory and punitive damages in one of three conditions: (a) compensatory damages only, (b) punitive damages for the plaintiff, or (c) punitive damages for the state treasury. Results suggest that jurors who did not have the option to award punitive damages inflated compensatory damages via pain and suffering awards. Jurors were marginally more likely to award punitive damages when the plaintiff was the recipient. Mock jurors in Study 2 read a similar case summary and were asked to assess compensatory and punitive damages. Two factors were varied in Study 2: (a) egregiousness of the defendant's conduct, and (b) the recipient of any punitive damages (the plaintiff vs. a consortium of state funds). Jurors were more likely to award punitive damages when the defendant's conduct was more egregious and when the plaintiff was the recipient. The results suggest leakage between compensatory and punitive damage judgments, contrary to the law's mandate.     

Explaining “Pain and Suffering” Awards: The Role of Injury Characteristics and Fault Attributions

The present research explored factors thought to affect compensatory awards for non-economic ham (pain and suffering) in personal injury cases. Experiment 1 showed that the nature and severity of the plaintiffs injury had a strong effect on perceptions of the extent of harm suffered and on award amounts. The parties' relatively active or passive roles in causing the injury affected assessments of their degree of fault, but perceived fault had little influence on awards. Experiment 2 replicated with more varied cases the strong impact of injury severity on harm perception and on awards for pain and suffering. In both studies, the disability and the mental suffering associated with injuries were stronger predictors of awards than were pain and disfigurement.     

Physically violent husbands of the 1890s and their resources

This article applies Goode's Resource Theory of wife beating to Lane County, Oregon from 1891 to 1900. The sample population consists of 56 women who appeared in divorce suits and claimed that their husbands had physically abused them. The study's findings largely support Resource Theory, although biases in the sample population make it more suggestive than conclusive. Wife beaters of the 1890s tended to be relatively low in economic and social resources, particularly when compared to their wives. The violent husbands' resources appear particularly slight when their psychological resources are considered. The article closes by suggesting that Resource Theory is not necessarily at odds with feminist interpretations of wife battering. Social scientists who assert that husbands' physical violence is more likely when their dominance is pronounced rather than fragile need to define more carefully and detect the actual level of power and resources that particular husbands enjoy.     

Can Money Symbolize Acknowledgment? How Victims’ Relatives Perceive Monetary Awards for Their Emotional Harm

Legal systems differ markedly on how they treat the emotional harm suffered by close family members of crime or accident victims. This paper reports the results of two empirical studies examining how citizens whose child, partner, or parent was killed or seriously injured as a result of violent crime or tort (secondary victims) perceive a monetary award for their own non-economic harm relating to the death or injury of their loved one. The objective of our research was to test the Dutch legislator's assumption that a (modest) monetary award for secondary victims' emotional harm can have a meaningful symbolic value by providing recognition and satisfaction. Until then, no compensation was available for such harm under Dutch law. In addition, we examined whether victims' relatives preferred standardization or individuation in determining the amount of the award, how they evaluated the amount, and the manner in which such awards might be offered. In a first quantitative survey study conducted in the Netherlands, 726 secondary victims were asked for their evaluations of such awards for the emotional harm they suffered as a result of the death or injury of their family member. We also asked our representative sample about their actual experience of the legal process in order to put their evaluations of such awards into context. In a second qualitative study, conducted in Belgium, interviews were held with 14 secondary victims who had actually received an award for their own emotional harm under Belgian law (study 2). Results suggest that secondary victims regard an award for emotional harm as a positive gesture and may interpret it as helping to satisfy relatives' psychological concerns by seeing it, for example, as an acknowledgment of loss and responsibility. Overall findings suggest that victims' relatives may be seeking acknowledgement of their emotional losses and the norm violation.     

Anchoring in the Courtroom: The Effects of Caps on Punitive Damages

Responding to the perception that civil damage awards are out of control, courts and legislatures have pursued tort reform efforts largely aimed at reigning in damage awards by juries. One proposed method for reigning in civil juries is to limit, or cap, the amount that can be awarded for punitive damages. Despite significant controversy over damage awards and the civil litigation system, there has been little research focusing on the process by which juries determine damages. In particular, there is a paucity of research on the possible effects of placing caps on punitive damages. The present research examines punitive damage caps and reveals an anchoring effect of the caps on both compensatory and punitive damages. A second experiment replicates this effect and examines the moderating effect of bifurcating the compensatory and punitive damage decisions.     

Double Discounting: The Effects of Comparative Negligence on Mock Juror Decision Making

Two experiments were conducted to ascertain the effects of comparative negligence on damage awards. Participants awarded damages for a mock medical malpractice case in which the level of the plaintiff's negligence was varied. Both experiments showed that damage awards were doubly discounted for partially negligent plaintiffs. Experiment 1 also found that the responses of college students did not differ from those of people who had been called for jury duty. Experiment 2 examined four components of the damage award and showed that the reduction due to the level of the plaintiff's negligence occurred only in damages for bodily harm. Implications for the judicial system are discussed.     

The Effects of Limiting Punitive Damage Awards

In response to concerns that jury awards in tort cases are excessive and unpredictable, nearly every state legislature has enacted some version of tort reform that is intended to curb extravagant damage awards. One of the most important and controversial reforms involves capping (or limiting) the maximum punitive damage award. We conducted a jury analogue study to assess the impact of this reform. In particular, we examined the possibility that capping punitive awards would cause jurors to inflate their compensatory awards to satisfy their desires to punish the defendant, particularly in situations where the defendant's conduct was highly reprehensible. Relative to a condition in which punitive damages were unlimited, caps on punitive damages did not result in inflation of compensatory awards. However, jurors who had no option to award punitive damages assessed compensatory damages at a significantly higher level than did jurors who had the opportunity to do so. We discuss the policy implications of these findings.     

Fatal accidents and blood ethanol levels in adolescents and adults. The Wayne County experience, 1978-1988

The files of 874 fatal traumatic accident victims, aged 12-25 years, examined at the Wayne County Medical Examiner's Office during the period 1978-1988 were reviewed. Postmortem blood alcohol results of individuals who died after less than 15 min of hospitalization were utilized to approximate alcohol levels at the time of the fatal injury. Relationships between types of accidents, sex, age, race, and time of accident were examined. White victims were far more likely to have been drinking than blacks, and the data indicated that underaged drinkers were involved in fatal accidents at lower levels of blood alcohol than their counterparts of legal drinking age. Consistent racial differences in average alcohol levels were not observed, however. Unlike female and black victims, who much less frequently tested positive for alcohol when underage, white male victims 16-21 years of age were just as likely to have been drinking as those aged 21-25. The results of the study show that postmortem blood alcohol level can be used to identify differences in alcohol consumption among groups of accident victims in a major metropolitan area.     

Occupational workplace and traffic fatalities in Alsace, France (2000–2005): Results of toxicological investigations

France ranks as leader country in Europe for the consumption of cannabis as well as of psychoactive medications. Whereas the relationship between psychotropics and road accidents is now well-established, few data are still available on the influence of drugs on occupational accidents. The purpose of the present study was to measure the prevalence of psychoactive drug intake (alcohol excepted) among victims of occupational fatalities (including workplace accidents + traffic accidents, i.e. on the way to and from work) occurred in the region Alsace over the period 2000–2005. Data were collected by compiling files on occupational accidents from two different public agencies (CRAM, Regional Sickness Fund Alsace-Moselle; DRTEFP, Regional Department of Work, Employment and Professional Training) together with those from the Medico-Legal Institute of Strasbourg over the period tested. Data analysis showed that 3% of the victims of workplace fatalities were under the influence of drugs (alcohol excluded) at the time of accident, as well as 5% of the victims of occupational traffic accidents. Our results also highlight a low rate of toxicological analyses, since these investigations were requested by the authorities in 41% of traffic victims and only 15% of workplace victims. In France, the relevance of psychoactive drug intake in occupational deaths is much better targeted in the case of traffic fatalities (due to the existence of specific regulations, e.g. compulsory urinalysis for drugs of abuse in drivers involved in a road accident) than in those occurred at workplace (no specific regulations).     

Males and females as victims of childhood sexual abuse: An examination of the gender effect

The data for this study were provided by a poll of 2627 adult Americans carried out by The Los Angeles Times in 1985. Five hundred and eighty five respondents (416 females and 169 males) reported having been victims of sexual abuse before they were 18 years of age. A portion of this subsample was used to systematically explore gender differences in the nature and context of abuse. Abusers where overwhelmingly male; however, differences were apparent among their victims. Males were more likely to report being victims of nonrelatives, with the abuse taking place outside of their home. Males were older than females at the time of first abuse and their abuser tended to be relatively close in age to them. Their abuse was more likely to be more severe than that of females but they were less likely to have reported it. Dichotomizing the sample into those abused by relatives and nonrelatives revealed that a number of differences in the profiles of male and female victims relate to the nature of their relationship to the abuser.     

Is knowledge power? The effects of a victimology course on victim blaming

The current study examines the impact of a victimology course on students' perceptions of the blameworthiness of crime victims and knowledge of victimization issues. Victim-blaming attitudes among college students enrolled in a victimology course were compared with students enrolled in other courses. Results from a pretest and posttest suggest that the victimology students were significantly less likely to blame victims and these students also gained significantly more knowledge over time compared with the students who did not enroll in the course. Results from the multivariate analysis indicate that less knowledge over time and a higher propensity to blame victims at the beginning of the semester predicted more victim-blaming attitudes on the posttest. Overall, the findings suggest that knowledge of victimology significantly affects students' propensity to blame victims of crime.     

Reasons for Staying in Intimately Violent Relationships: Comparisons of Men and Women and Messages Communicated to Self and Others

Victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) often are blamed for remaining in abusive relationships. As a result, victims may communicate messages rationalizing why they stay. Systematic, comparative examinations of these messages directed toward self and others by males versus females have not been conducted. This study addresses a gap in the literature by exploring victims’ communication regarding staying. Self-reports of 345 heterosexual IPV victims (N = 239 women, 106 men) demonstrated that more justifications were communicated internally to self than externally to others. Men and women differed significantly in only three of 14 messages, with men choosing more stereotypically masculine reasons for staying. Findings are discussed in terms of applications to victims and their stay-leave decision-making in IPV relationships.     

SOME NEW EVIDENCE ON THE SERIOUSNESS OF CRIME*

Previous studies of the seriousness of crime have attempted to elicit information from public surveys. This paper reports on an alternative method of ranking the severity of crime. Actual victim injury rates are combined with jury awards in personal injury accident cases to estimate pain, suffering, and fear. Crime-related death rates are combined with estimates of the value of life to arrive at monetary values for the risk of death. These estimates are combined with out-of-pocket costs (such as medical costs and lost wages) to arrive at total dollar estimates of the cost of individual crimes to victims. These dollar estimates are then used to rank the seriousness of crimes. Although these two approaches yield surprisingly similar rankings, the monetary estimates indicate that violent crimes are relatively more costly to victims than survey results might imply.     

Observer reactions to emotional victims of serious crimes: stereotypes and expectancy violations

Negative observer reactions towards victims may be related to people’s expectations of the characteristics and demeanor of an ideal victim. We examined how expressed emotion, victim sex, and type of victimization influence observers’ perceptions of victim credibility, victim character, and harm. Our hypothesis was that angry victims, male victims, and victims of sexual violence are perceived less positively than sad victims, female victims, and victims of physical violence. Additionally, we anticipated that expectancy violations following expressed agentic/high status, or passive/low-status emotions of the victim would lead to negative reactions. Participants (N?=?335) read a written victim impact statement, by a male or female victim of a sexual or physical assault, in which anger or sadness was expressed. The results show that observers generally respond more negatively to male victims than to female victims, and to victims expressing anger rather than sadness. However, a two-way interaction between expressed emotion and type of crime revealed that expressed emotion only significantly influences character derogation and victim credibility in cases of physical violence. Finally, emotion expectancy violations based on ex-ante expectations lead to derogation and diminished credibility. The discussion focuses on how emotion expectancy violations seem intimately tied to stereotype-ridden features of victimization.     

论未成年人受侵害的过失相抵

与加害人的过失不同，受害人的过失并非违反不得侵害他人权益的义务，而是违反了对自己的保护义务，此种义务在法律上是一种不真正义务。对于受害人的过失的判断，应以受害人尽到与处理自己事务一样的注意义务而非善良管理人的注意义务为标准。为保持现行立法与司法的稳妥，可以规定：10周岁以上的未成年人具有过失相抵能力，10周岁以下的未成年人不具有过失相抵能力。在未成年人遭受他人侵害，其监护人未尽监护职责导致损害的发生或扩大的情况下，若监护人违反善良管理人的注意义务，未成年的受害人应该承担监护人的过失，在斟酌损害赔偿数额时，实行过失相抵。