Truth in The Civil Justice System
A jury serves the function of resolving disputes between citizens in a civil, non violent manner. In the personal injury case, the jury is asked to decide what is the proper remedy for the harm caused to another Hoosier by another’s negligence. As we stated last, most defendants have liability insurance to indemnify the defendant for any judgment entered against them. This means that the defendant, the one who caused the harm to another, will never pay anything out of their pocket.
I say again that I think that if a jury is to be fair, then it should be told the truth. For instance, did you know that many defendants have immunity for the harm they cause. This means that the person who was injured by the negligence of two different defendants, and one is immune, the first defendant can claim the injury was caused by the immune party’s negligence, but the jury cannot know that the immune person will never be responsible for making up for the harm caused to the injured Hoosier. So when a jury returns a verdict for the injured party for say one million dollars and divides the fault for the harm equally between the two responsible parties, the immune party will not have to make up for the harm they caused and the injured party will only receive $500,000.00. Now you may say that $500,000.00 is a lot of money and the injured party should be happy with that. While, I agree $500,000.00 is a lot of money in the abstract, it may not be enough money if the injured person’s medical bills are $500,000.00 and the injured person can no longer work and support their family. In this situation, not only is the injured party no longer a tax paying productive and contributing member of society, the injured party becomes a drain on the public resources of Medicare, social security, Medicaid, food stamps etc. So who ends up paying for the immune person’s negligence? Everyone who pays taxes.
That is not fair.
The laws granting immunity, which ultimately place responsibility on the tax payer while letting the responsible party off the hook need to be abolished. In addition, jurors should be told that a immune person is not going to be held responsible for their actions.