Jury Duty (With a Surprise Ending)

I served on a jury approximately 15 years ago, give or take a couple. The day I reported for jury duty was a Friday. I brought a book with me and expected to go back to work the following Monday. Upon entering the courtroom, however, I "won" this lottery by being the second person to have his name pulled out of the box! I sat with the other "lottery winners" in the jury box as the lawyers from both sides questioned us. I was not one who was dismissed. My fate for the next week was sealed! Judge Andrew V. Siracuse announced that the trial would begin on Monday and would wrap up the following Friday.

On Monday, I was seated as juror #4, a position given to me because I am hard of hearing and they put me in the spot closest to the witness stand. We had 8 jurors altogether, two of whom were alternates. Six were needed for this case.

This was a civil trial for a medical malpractice case. A doctor and a hospital were being sued by the family of a severely obese man who died following complications of gastric bypass surgery. From the opening statements, we learned that the man had been unsuccessful in prior attempts to lose weight and turned to this doctor for gastric bypass surgery. After he had been home for recovery, he had a pulmonary embolism and died. The plaintiff was claiming that the doctor used an older, outdated method of gastric bypass surgery. The defendants were claiming that yes, the method was older, but there was nothing wrong with that method and it didn't cause death. A pulmonary embolism is a risk of any surgery.

Over the next couple of days, the plaintiff called witnesses to the stand, including the man's widow and step-daughter. They told the story of how he came home from the hospital and had trouble with the liquid diet that he had been put on. Other witnesses included other medical experts who testified as to why this bypass procedure was the wrong one.

One witness, another doctor, had brought with him a poster-sized graphic representing the man's innards, which he had intended to use for his testimony. But the defense objected to this piece of artwork; the judge asked him if he had produced the graphic. The doctor said no, he'd had it professionally done. The judge threw out the evidence and told the doctor to make the drawings himself with a marker on a large flipboard. I was actually amused when I saw how flustered this doctor became at being told to do that, when he obviously wasn't mentally prepared for it. I figured he must have been a paid witness.

There were other times during the trial when the lawyers approached the bench over procedures. The judge always turned to the jury and told us to disregard those arguments, as they were about court procedures and had nothing to do with the testimony we were listening to.

It was about halfway through the week when we came into the courtroom and were told that the hospital and the family had reached some kind of a settlement. We never found out what the terms were. It was just to let us know that the hospital representative and its lawyer would no longer be there.

During the defense testimony, the doctor was called to the stand. While giving his testimony, one argument stood out to me was over the dead man's liquid diet. The doctor had said that the amount of liquid the widow was feeding her husband was way more than it should have been and here in court was the first he had heard that. He seemed very agitated about this and wondered why she never told him of the problems he was having. It sounded to me that neither party had made a very good effort at communicating with the other during the home recovery.

During the week, I had opportunity to have lunch with all of the other jurors at one time or another. I remember two of their names: Gil, the owner of a Convenient Store, and Beverly, an elderly woman. Gil couldn't really take time off from work for this. He was going in at 4:30 in the morning to take care of the books and then coming to court. Beverly was concerned about her dog; she said her dog missed her while she was gone and she couldn't wait for the week to end so she could get back into her regular routine. We also had a jeweler and a downtown business man. The downtown business man worked a few blocks away, so he also put in some time in the morning before coming to court. It turns out that the businessman began escorting Beverly to her bus stop each day after court. I'll tell you why these details matter shortly.

On Friday morning, both sides gave their closing arguments. Judge Siracuse charged the jury with deciding whether the doctor was negligent, leading to the man's death. If we did find him negligent, we were to come up with an amount of money to be awarded. The two alternate jurors were thanked for their service and dismissed.

I believe we entered the jury room around 11:30 or so. Lunch was brought in for us, which we enjoyed before we got down to business. We had to choose a foreman. Since there is no science to choosing a foreman, we chose the downtown business man simply because he was the last to arrive each day! Then we set about asking for a few pieces of evidence that we would be allowed to study. I don't remember what anyone else asked for, but I wanted to see some of the medical records and a photo of the man. I was already quite convinced I was going to vote in favor of the doctor, so I wanted the family to know that at least someone on the jury had enough heart to want to see his picture up close.

So then it came time to go around the table and give our first impressions. It wasn't even official, as we had hardly discussed the case yet, but it was unanimously in favor of the doctor. Then for the next hour or so, we reviewed the evidence that was in front of us and discussed the case. Being that this was the first time we were allowed to talk about it, it was interesting to see that we were all thinking the same thing. Yes, some of the doctor's follow-up care was a bit lacking, yes it was sad this man had died, but no, the doctor's medical procedure did not cause his death. It was the risk that any surgery brings, a pulmonary embolism, that caused his death. So, our verdict was unanimous, even though we only needed a majority.

I believe it was around 1:30 or so that we told the court deputy that we had a verdict. It took a little while longer to get everyone back in the courtroom again, so we had to wait in the jury room until we were told they were ready. Our foreman, Mr. Downtown Businessman, had the duty of standing up to give the verdict. Since he was right next to me, I actually was able to hide my face from the widow behind his body a bit. I felt bad for her that this was the verdict we brought, so I felt like I couldn't face her. But the law is the law and that's what we decided. The jury was not asked to be polled, but the judge did ask if it was unanimous and we all nodded while the foreman answer, "Yes."

We were thanked and sent back to the jury room. A short time later, Judge Siracuse came in and sat with us to chat about the trial. Someone asked him if we made the right decision. He said, "What you decided was the right decision. I know some facts about this case that we couldn't tell you."

By the time we left, all parties of the court had left. I went home and finally told my wife what the case was about.

A couple of years later, I met Gil again at a party. Gil told me that he had stayed in touch with the jeweler and Mr. Downtown Businessman. And now, "The Rest of the Story." Mr. Downtown Businessman was walking Beverly back to her bus stop. She obviously was happy this was over and was looking forward to getting back home. As they walked, Beverly suddenly collapsed and died on the sidewalk! Mr. Downtown was able to summon help from an ambulance that happened to be standing around the corner, but it was too late. She was gone. He went back upstairs to tell courtroom personnel what had happened so they could call her husband. Her beloved dog never saw her again.