Decisionmaking and Civil Jury Verdicts in Personal Injury Cases

人身伤害案件中的决策和民事陪审团裁决

• 批准号: 8911778
• 负责人: Robert MacCoun
• 金额: $ 16.33万
• 依托单位: Rand Corporation
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1989
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1989-08-15 至 1992-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=8911778&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Decisionmaking; Civil; Jury; Verdicts; Personal

Over the years, empirical research on juries has focused almost exclusively on the criminal jury. Very little is known about decisionmaking by juries in civil litigation. This is unfortunate since the role of the jury in civil litigation is a matter of ongoing debate. Critics claim that civil juries are unpredictable, inequitable, and incapable of coping with complex litigation. Recent legistive proposals for modifying the civil jury system are predicated on untested assumptions about jury behavior. This study will identify and test some important empirical questions about decisionmaking by civil juries in the area of personal injury cases. There is some indication that civil jury verdicts in personal injury cases are less favorable for organizational defendants than for individual defendants. Critics cite this pattern in support of the hypothesis that jurors are influenced by the defendant's financial resources, labelling it a "Deep Pockets" effect. However, there are a number of alternative explanations for this defendant identity effect. This project will conduct three mock jury experiments to attempt to replicate the defendant identity effect and to test competitively several alternative models in order to better understand the norms and values that underly jurors' liability and compensation judgments in tort litigation. The first two experiments will examine individual juror judgments using written trial scenarios, while the third experiment will replicate and extend the results of those studies using deliberating mock juries and a realistic videotaped trial reenactment. This research will yield a rich and diverse collection of data on civil juror and jury decision processes which will add to our knowledge about juror judgment in personal injury cases. Not only will the testing of alternative theoretical models expand scientific knowledge in this area, but a better understanding of the basis for jury verdicts will contribute to a more informed policy debate. In addition, the deliberation content analyses will help to identify ways in which trial procedures can be improved to assist citizens, jurors, and perhaps judges in tackling the complexity and uncertainty of fact-finding in civil litigation. Of broader social psychological relevance, the research will permit examination of relatively unexplored attributional issues and the factors that influence the relative salience of distributive justice norms.

多年来，对陪审团的实证研究几乎完全集中在刑事陪审团上。关于陪审团在民事诉讼中的决策，人们知之甚少。这是不幸的，因为陪审团在民事诉讼中的作用是一个持续辩论的问题。批评人士声称，民事陪审团是不可预测的、不公平的，而且没有能力处理复杂的诉讼。最近关于修改民事陪审团制度的法律提案是基于对陪审团行为的未经检验的假设。本研究将对民事陪审团在人身伤害案件中决策的一些重要的实证问题进行识别和检验。有一些迹象表明，在人身伤害案件中，民事陪审团的裁决对有组织的被告比对个人被告更不利。批评者援引这种模式来支持陪审员受到被告经济资源影响的假设，并将其称为“大口袋效应”。然而，对于这种被告身份效应，有许多不同的解释。该项目将进行三个模拟陪审团实验，试图复制被告身份效应，并竞争性地测试几种替代模式，以更好地理解在侵权诉讼中低估陪审员责任和赔偿判决的规范和价值观。前两个实验将使用书面审判情景检查陪审员个人的判决，而第三个实验将使用仔细考虑的模拟陪审团和真实的审判录像重演来复制和扩展这些研究的结果。这项研究将产生关于民事陪审员和陪审团决定过程的丰富和多样化的数据收集，这将增加我们对陪审员在人身伤害案件中的判断的了解。对替代理论模型的测试不仅将扩大这一领域的科学知识，而且更好地理解陪审团裁决的基础将有助于更知情的政策辩论。此外，审议内容分析将有助于确定可以改进审判程序的方法，以帮助公民、陪审员，甚至法官处理民事诉讼中事实认定的复杂性和不确定性。对于更广泛的社会心理相关性，这项研究将允许检查相对未被探索的归因问题和影响分配正义规范的相对显着性的因素。