It occurred to me that it’s only reasonable to have only doctors, RN’s, etc. as jurors on a medical malpractice case. Some time ago I mentioned this to my father, who is a retired hospital administrator, and he said something to the effect that it would be like letting the foxes guard the henhouse. I usually differ to his expertise, but I find it hard to believe that a (moral and competent) doctor would vote to acquit another doctor who was guilty of gross negligence/malpractice/etc. It seems to me that a doctor (or RN) would be in the best position to decide if a certain act/accident was malpractice or an understandable mistake.
*I don’t recall reading any threads about the definition of “peer” regarding jury trials, but I find it hard to believe that it hasn’t come up before. Instead of diverting this discussion to this topic, please provide links to previous threads, or start a new thread (and feel free to provide a link to that).
**Also, I don’t want this thread to divert to the topic of malpractice caps, or anything else regarding how much money is involved in malpractice cases. Again, take it to another thread.
The question here is : would it be a bad idea to have a jury of all medical professionals for all medical malpractice trials? Would that be fair to the accused? Or would that be unfair to the victim? What do you think?
As a successful litigant in a malpractice case and a former nurse I think your father is a very good judge.
The very first step in establishing a case against a medical practitioner is to get an expert opinion that their conduct constituted negligence. In our case even though it was easy for us to find nurses who had seen similar events without adverse results and were amazed that a child could die in a hospital with those complications, it was a very different story when it came to finding a doctor who would express an objective opinion. We had to pass the papers on to a Professor to get an honest answer.
I fancy that the chances of getting a verdict against a medical practioner delivered by other medical practitioners would be pretty damn slim.
With all due respect, you were working for the victim, weren’t you? Is it possible that all of the doctors gave ‘an honest answer’, and only the Professor didn’t?
I guess the issue is about the balance between bias and expertise.
I could see that having a health care background would help in such cases, so I would say that RN’s etc shoulc not be automatically ruled out as a potential juror.
But, I don’t see juries made up of just RN’s. docs etc being fair and just to the plaintiffs.
Medicine(health care) can be insular and exclusive–it needs to be balanced by input from other walks of life in a court room.
That said, my Dad does alot of testifying in med mal cases (he’s a pathologist) as an expert witness.
If judges generally seek to keep lawyers out of the jury box for criminal trials, out of concern that their legal knowledge would decide on factors that had not been presented to the jury as fact, then I don’t see why doctors and other health care professionals should be the exclusive pool for jurors for these types of cases.
In serious matters where huge sums are at stake, I think the interests of justice are better served by having jurors who represent more of a “clean slate” with respect to a particular question. A doctor, on the other hand, would be more likely to refer to his own experiences (and perhaps his own foul ups) in making a decision. I don’t see it so much as a matter of doctors being biased for or against other doctors, just more as keeping personal bias out of the jury box.
There is more to be said for a panel including health professionals that would* screen* complaints (providing recommendations for compensation and ferreting out bogus filings), than there would be for all doctor/nurse juries.
You would not want such a panel to consist entirely of docs in the targeted physician’s specialty, but to have a range of knowledgeable MD and non-MD professionals.
Arbitration using skilled analysts such as these could reduce lawsuits and provide faster compensation for victims. Might affect the lifestyle of med-mal attorneys, though.
Doesn’t the defendant have the right to wave his right to a jury trail? If juries are so biased against doctors, why don’t more doctors wave their right to a jury trial?
I was a juror on a medical malpractice civil suit. We found for the doctor on all but one question, and that was fairly minor. Should I and other 7 people (6 jurors in the room, 2 alternates), none of whom were trained medical professionals, not have been on that jury?
Criminal defendants have the right to waive a jury trial. In most jurisdictions, civil defendants can only waive the jury if the plaintiffs agree. Which they won’t.
That’s the whole point - juries should have no expertise. The ideal juror has excellent critical thinking and listening skills, but has been locked in a basement since the age of six and doesn’t know anything except English and basic hygiene.
Absolutely not. One of the major problems in the US medical system is the “wall of silence”. The AMA claims that their profession is self-policing but it is not at all.
If the medical professionals would actually clean up their own ranks instead of covering up for each other, it would go a long way towards reducing malpractice in this country.
As long as we’re at it, why don’t we just require that all criminal juries be pulled from prison populations? After all, they’re the experts and peers of those on trial, right?
When my mom started looking into a malpractice suit, she actually had a doctor tell her that, yes, she’d been royally fucked over and deserved a huge settlement, but that if he was subpoenaed, he’d lie on the stand to protect the doctors involved. Because otherwise he wouldn’t have a practice left. Not one of the thirty or forty docs she spoke to here would testify. She had to go out-of-state to get an expert witness.
And these are the people that you think would be fair and impartial jurors?
The OP is assuming that only a person in the medical field is capable of understanding. This is a bad assumption. If it is explained clearly it can be understood by most people, certainly not all but most.
Here’s an example, I was a system admin for a large hotel. A huge part of my job consisted of translating between the MIS person and the manager. The MIS director had no patience for anyone who didn’t understand a computer term. The managers had no desire to learn computers.
The MIS director would say “They’re idiots they’ll never understand.” The managers said “Why should we learn computers, that’s his job.”
100% of the time I was able to translate any information between the two. The MIS director could’ve done this, as well as could’ve the managers without my help.
All I as a juror need to know is the FACTS. Juries decide evidence based on what is GIVEN TO THEM. Juries do NOT decided cases on information THEY KNOW.
A juror is not supposd to say “You know this wasn’t brought up at the trial but I know it and I’ll base my decision not on what is presented to me, but on my own personal knowlege.”
If this happened what this means is either the prosecutor or the defense attorney was weak and/or ill prepared.
I’d be fine with just getting rid of the juries, but if you make the jury all doctors you might as well just do away with malpractice suits, and instead have mandatory arbitration overseen by the AMA.
Like, if a cop was on trial for police brutality, the jury should all be cops too. If a homeowner sues a contractor, the jury should be composed of contractors. If you sue a drycleaner for ruining your silk dress, the jury should be all drycleaners.
If we put the industry in charge of policing itself then we might as well forget about the trial in the first place.