Jury duty, medical malpractice, and the cost of a human life

Last Friday, I had to journey to the Daley center for a jury summons. The deal is either one day or one trial. Lucky me, I was selected to serve on a jury for a medical malpractice lawsuit.
I tried a bit to get out of it. I was scheduled to have a job interview tomorrow.
There's a bit of a process in jury selection. The judge first asks a series of prescreening questions. Those questions are designed to weed out folks who may be favorable to one side or the other. Supposedly, those questions are also designed to give folks a chance to convince the judge that they have something coming up that they may prevent them from serving on the jury.
Job interviews don't count, and I found that out the hard way.
The judge's exact words to me? "Nice try."
Thanks, your honor.
I should have lied and said I watch every law drama, whether fictional or fact-based, and expected the Law and Order sound effect every time a witness took the stand.
Clink clink.
So, I got sworn in for jury duty on Friday. Once I learned I had to return for the trial Monday, I returned home.
All potential jurors were advised about the case. A woman sued a pathologist for a missed stomach cancer diagnosis. About 5 years ago, she visited her doctor, who ordered a biopsy of some stomach tissue. Slides were created and sent to a pathologist for review. This particular pathologist said the tissue was noncancerous.
So, the woman thinks she's basically fine. She's prescribed some antacid for digestive problems. But, her problems persisted, and 15 months later, she visited her doctor again. They get some more stomach tissue, and she gets the bad news she has stomach cancer.
Ultimately, the original slide was reviewed, and it was determined that she in fact had stomach cancer five years ago. Problem is, the cancer was at a much earlier stage and therefore more easily treatable compared to what she had to endure, which included surgery, radiation and chemo. That, and she really doesn't trust doctors much anymore.
I won't go into too many specifics. Basically, cancer is more treatable and the patient has a higher survival rate the earlier it's detected and operated on. The plaintiff's case was that the delayed diagnosis would end up costing her a lot, including ultimately her life to a degree of likelihood.
So, she wanted money. A pretty darned big amount of money. More money than I'll ever see.
Her attorneys asked for $12 million in total damages. The defense thought $550,000 was a fair amount.
Seeing that there was such a discrepancy in figures, the jury had to decide how much to award this woman. I'd hoped that the two sides would settle before the trial, but that didn't happen.
Let me tell you about one particular oddity. We were told not to speculate about what the plaintiff endured, but we were told to come up with a figure for not only past, but future pain, suffering, etc.
So, we didn't speculate, but we did speculate.
It's an interesting thing, sitting in a crowded room with 11 other people, trying to figure out what a life is worth. On one hand, we agreed that the woman should be compensated. On the other, we agreed that the pathologist shouldn't be punished about this forever.
There was very little about this case that was concrete. The woman missed work for about four months during her chemo and radiation treatment, and she provided receipts for medical treatment. The plaintiff attorneys also had a doctor testify about her chances for relapse and possible medical expenses if she does relapse.
Other than that, we poor jury folks had to figure how much to award this lady, and that award was gonna be somewhere between $550,000 and $12 million.
There was a fair amount of discussion between us, and from what I could tell, a desire to not be asked to place a dollar value on this case. How do you put a figure on a life that hasn't even been fully lived? How can you award damages based on a chance that she'll relapse, even if that chance is significant? How are all parties involved, both plaintiff and defense, affected by your decision? Are we just part of the whole medical malpractice lawsuit problem?
Some folks wanted to award a total of $6 million, some a bit less. Honestly, I wasn't comfortable discussing such big sums of money, but I'd said under oath that if warranted, I could vote for a significant amount of damages.
After a couple hours of finagling and such, we ultimately decided on a total figure of $4.5 million in damages.
I hope we did right by both the plaintiff and defendant.
We spoke to the sheriff's deputy about the decision, asking what he thought the judge would think. He advised the judge wouldn't tell us directly, but he thought we came up with a figure that was about what was expected.
So, what did I do today? I got paid $17.20 and a sammich to award someone a lot of money.
I hope it was fair.
I hope it was just.
I hope I'm never asked to do something like this again.
I need a drink.