JURY DUTY

I have not been called to jury duty very often, probably no more than half a dozen times. The only jury I served on was in municipal court in Potter County. The case was heard for an elderly (maybe in his 70’s) who asked for a jury trial for a ticket he received for not wearing his seat belt. GUILTY!!

The only other time I even got close to being chosen as a juror was for a child molestation case. My thinking is that I wasn’t chosen due to my being a mom and grandmom. But, they kept us there from 8am to 6pm. That was a long $6 day.

This time it was very different. This time out of almost 300 called, I was “chosen” to be a juror for a civil trial they claimed would take 2 to 3 days. Famous last words. We were there all week! The plaintiffs were suing State Farm for failing to pay for all the damages from a 2005 hail storm. I’ve been in a few hail storms and we had 2 new roofs within 5 years due to hail storms. The plaintiffs were claiming damage to their ceilings and walls inside their home and on their front and back porches. The porch ceilings were of masonite, the type that over the years has had some rather large claims due to their inferior products. Honestly, the hail was the biggest I’ve ever seen. The video showed stones as big as large grapefruits. Several actually broke through the decking on the roof. State Farm replaced both roof and decking. No problem there.

The rest of the damage, State Farm claimed, mostly due to normal aging or poor construction. We listened to 3 1/2 hours of video deposition, plus 4 more days of testimony from witnesses and “experts”, ad infinitum. Much of it was hashed over and over and over, with the lawyers asking the same question 20 times just to get the answer they wanted. Just like on Law & Order!

Our judge is probably the nicest guy on the bench in Randall County. We recessed at least every hour for one thing or another. And we always broke for 40 to 45 minutes for lunch and were released by 5 every day. But, the county didn’t spring for our lunches. After all, we were receiving $40/day so we surely could afford it. Guess what, I’m keeping the $166 I get for the week.

All in all, it was a great experience. We found for the plaintiff, but not for everything. They were asking for $18,000 for repairs remaining on the house and $12,220 for the cost of the engineer they hired on their own to review State Farms findings and make his own recommendations. We awarded them $7,000 for the repairs which is what it would have cost them for the remaining repairs in 2005, and $6,000 for their engineer since his original cost was more like $2000 until he added on the costs of litigation. I found out later that State Farm was willing to settle the whole thing for $25,000. I guess the plaintiffs weren’t very happy with the verdict. The finding for the plaintiff was not unanimous but we only had to have 10 of 12 votes. By the way, today they are still insured with State Farm.

I learned more than I ever wanted to know about insurance adjustors, estimates, et all. It wouldn’t have been such a long week except that every night after court recessed, I went to the office and worked another 2 to 3 hours. I’d come home and literally collapse and fall asleep in minutes. All the while, thinking about Kathy, Tom, and Marcello arriving here the next Monday.

If you ever have a chance, I think the experience is worth the effort. However, had I been considered for jury in the molester trial and been asked questions by the lawyers, I would have said “hang him high and hang him low - hang him by his thumbs and his ever lovin balls”. See, they would have quickly let me go.