Enhancing Juror Effectiveness: An Insurer's Perspective

Abstract

Over the past few years, Aetna and other insurers have been under fire from some critics' for their interest in civil justice reform. Insurers have been cast as profiteering opportunists, who have invented civil justice reform as a device to mask problems that result from their business practices. The reality is that the civil justice system has witnessed a considerable change in tort and contract law over the last two decades. The increasing unpredictability, rising costs, and growing'inefficiency of litigation have wreaked havoc with the ability of businesses and governments to provide needed products and services at affordable prices, and in some cases to provide them at all.2 The insurance industry has been greatly affected. To respond to customer concerns over rising premiums and limitations on liability coverages, Aetna has engaged in an intensive effort to develop a better understanding of the liability system and to develop and advance reforms that improve the system in a way that balances the interests of all parties.3 The issue of juror effectiveness is of particular interest to Aetna. It is one of the areas where the interests of society and litigating parties align rather closely with what facilitates the insurance industry's ability to provide affordable liability insurance. If juries execute their responsibilities as charged, apply the law as directed, and reach rational and unbiased conclusions regarding the facts, they both uphold the objectives and principles of the justice system and fairly serve the litigating parties' interests. Under these circumstances, and assuming a situation where the law to be