Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Not Getting Picked

Well, I didn't get selected for a jury but it was a hell of a long day. I got selected into the pool of potential jurors for a big malpractice case (a baby was not diagnosed with bacterial meningitis quickly enough to avoid the complications of brain damage, blindness and othe bad things and a young female doctor was being blamed for not instantly diagnosing it in a 8 week old). I would not have been a very good juror for the plaintiff since I believe that doctors are held to a higher and unreasonable standard in many cases. People forget that they are human and can make mistakes. They put their pants on one leg at a time like the rest of us. That doesn't mean I don't believe there aren't cases of malpractice but I would set the burden of proof pretty high and surely higher than is normal is these cases. What happened to this little baby was a tragedy and he has my sympathy but to accuse a young doctor of malpractice for not diagnosing it instantly would be a real stretch for me.
Anyhow, the judge estimated that the trial would run a couple of weeks and judging from the time it took to select 12 jurors (all day and into the night) I am glad the plaintiff's attorney asked me questions he did. My answers contained most of what I said above plus a short rant on the state of health care and insane levels of award for pain and suffering in many of these cases. He is looking for millions for the plaintiff and didn't want someone like me on a jury.

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