Last week a jury awarded $24 million to the families of four young people killed at a rail crossing in Anoka.
From my reading of the news accounts, the verdict seems based on creating doubt about the evidence, which included a state patrol accident reconstruction that was "consistent with the Chevrolet Cavalier having
driven around the cross arm" and railroad company downloads from the crossing's equivalent of an airliner's black box that supported the patrol's reconstruction.
The crossing had gates, lights, sound. The train was also supposedly visible from the street that crossed the tracks. Trains on that route apparently also blow their whistles.
Still, it's possible for gates to malfunction. I saw that happening myself a week ago at 27th and 27th in south Minneapolis.
The gates were down and wouldn't come back up.
The families' attorneys apparently based their case on two contentions — the driver wouldn't do something that stupid and corporations lie:
"[The jury] obviously didn't believe the railroad's downloads because if they had been accurate, the gates would have been down and the young people in the car would have stopped. But they did not go around the gate, and that was clear."
In other words, no one would drive around or try to beat a crossing arm, so the evidence that shows they did had to be falsified.
Personally, I believe kids do stupid stuff a lot more often than parents ever know, and corporations lie less often than most people suspect. That attitude would never get me on a personal injury case jury.
I once sat through a trial in which I got to watch a plaintiffs attorney try to sow doubt about the facts in a wrongful death case. That the jury correctly didn't buy it still did not persuade me that complex cases are best left to jury understanding of technical details. Throw in the David and Goliath set up of many personal injury cases — with the let's teach Goliath a lesson so this never happens again undertone — and even corporations in the right have an uphill battle.
I wouldn't want to throw out a system that allows people without money and power to legitimately bring their grievances against corporations that caused them harm. But sometimes people do stupid things, and bad stuff happens.
The idea in criminal court is that the accused gets tried before a jury of his or her peers. But in a case like this, the defendant gets tried before a jury of its victim's peers.
Would having a jury of experts empaneled in these cases be more fair?
