We have now passed the two-year mark for the Covid pandemic. I’m sure it has challenged each of you in many and varied ways, as it has us. Hopefully, similar to all of us at the firm, things in your personal and professional lives are beginning to resemble life pre-Covid. A very welcomed change for us is that the trial courts in Northern Virginia have now started holding civil jury trials again.
As our practice focuses exclusively on representing people injured through no fault of their own, in which insurance companies are ultimately responsible for paying the settlement or a verdict, a firm trial date is key to fruitful settlement discussions or a verdict. Without the leverage of a firm trial date, an insurance company can simply back burner the case and drag things out, delaying justice for a deserving client.
The right to a jury trial in obtaining justice was evident in a case that Justin and I tried in Arlington Circuit Court last month. Our client was a lovely woman who suffered serious wrist and hand injuries when her car was t-boned by a careless driver who ran a red light. Efforts at negotiating a settlement with the auto insurance company proved fruitless, especially as I understood the insurance company wanted to see how jurors would react to personal injury cases in a semi post-Covid world.
Fortunately for our client, the jury did what every jury has done in the many jury trials I have had over my 38-year career…they got it right! That is, the jury performed their sworn duty to follow the law as instructed by the Judge, determined the facts from the evidence presented and returned a verdict consistent with the law and the facts.
In other words, the jury returned a just verdict!
Think about that for a bit… how much power a jury wields …how noble that power is …and how lucky we are as citizens to have the Constitutionally guaranteed right to bring a claim for harms done to us to a jury of our peers for redress. It is a system that is equally fair to both the person claimed to be wronged and the person accused of doing wrong. I made these points during my closing argument. It was evident when Justin spoke with a juror several days after the trial that the jurors took their oath seriously and appreciated the important role each played in a just, civil society.
Now that our local Courts are hearing civil jury trials, we are excited to once again stand before a jury of local citizens on behalf of our deserving clients to obtain justice on their behalf.
