Trial by Jury
Trial with or without a jury?
If a personal injury case does not settle, there is only one option, trial. Trial is complex, time consuming, expensive and most of all a huge risk. For many years, insurance companies and their lawyers continued to opt for jury trials. That means, a jury would decide the end result.
I tried to contact the Ministry of the Attorney General last year to obtain stats on how many civil personal injury cases are before a jury and how many are not. Oddly enough the Ministry informed me that they did not have stats about that particular issue.
A trial before a jury has certain advantages and disadvantages. For example, a jury might be sympathetic to the Plaintiff. In the alternative, a jury might dislike the Plaintiff. One of the most common concerns is whether or not a jury will be able to adequately understand the legal concepts and evidence without becoming confused.
The Lawyers Weekly reported, Dismissing the Jury wherein in the case of Placzek v. Green, [2010] the Judge dismissed the jury. The article reports, ``Justice Rady concluded that the case was of sufficient complexity that it was in the interests of justice that the jury notice be struck.``
The case had to do with a Plaintiff involved in a motor vehicle accident who had various injury complaints related to the accident and other previous accidents. All this resulted in mountains of medical evidence and medical experts.
It can become very confusing for jurors to decide which accident caused which specific injury and it seems the Judge was also of this view when she decided to dismiss the jury.
I doubt this decision will alter the views of the insurance companies and their lawyers into reconsidering whether they want a trial by jury. However, this case will certainly be cited by many lawyers who resisting a trial by jury.
If you need a lawyer, call the law office of Rehan Khalil a Mississauga lawyer.
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