What to Expect from the Jury during a Personal Injury Case
With most personal injury cases, especially those involving insurance providers, the best possible outcome will be to negotiate a settlement. A trial is expensive and time-consuming. There is no guarantee that you will win your personal injury trial. However, if you find yourself unable to resolve your personal injury case out of court, you might be forced to take your case to trial. In this case, you will be better off with a bench trial than with a jury trial.
The Challenge of Winning a Jury Trial
One of the biggest problems with a jury trial is the absence of the mention of insurance. The other party who is responsible for the accident will be in court and the jury might feel sympathetic toward them. Then, they might not be willing to require that the defendant pay substantial damages.
What the jury will often not realize is that the defendant's insurance provider will be paying for the damages in most cases rather than the defendant. Because many jury members do not understand how a personal injury case works, the insurance provider is likely to prefer this type of trial over a bench trial. One exception is if the facts of the case would lead the jury to be very sympathetic toward the plaintiff.
Why You Might Still Choose a Jury Trial
if your attorney is encouraging you to pursue a jury trial, this is because they might believe that you are being lowballed and that you have a better chance of receiving more compensation through a jury trial. Because your attorney will only be compensated if you win your case if the attorney is working on a contingency, your attorney will only go to trial if they believe they can win.
Other Things the Jury Doesn't Know
If the defendant paid for some of your medical bills, the jury cannot know this. That is to make sure that the jury does not assume that the defendant is at fault by paying for the medical bills. This is so that the defendant is not discouraged from helping you out of charity.
If there was a settlement offer, the jury also cannot be told this. Therefore, they might assume that your case has no basis until your personal injury attorney is able to prove through a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant was negligent and that their negligence caused you to suffer damages.