[speaker001:] okay so uh Mike what are your opinions on uh trial by jury
[speaker002:] well I work for an insurance company so I see a lot of uh verdicts that are pretty crazily decided um by juries particularly and I know in England the judges set all of the awards you know juries will decide the guilt or innocence but then they leave the awards up to more learned people and I think maybe that avoids some of these totally ridiculous you know like millions and millions of dollars
[speaker001:] um-hum yeah that that seems to make sense that leave it up to the more experienced person who knows how it fits into the uh kind of the rate for different incidents
[speaker002:] oh exactly each individual jury really doesn't have any perception of what um the going you know if you will the going uh award should be for a certain type of case you know within some kind of range
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] when you get one way out like that that then really doesn't penalize wind up penalizing the person that they went after who it really penalizes is their insurance company which then translates into higher rates for all of us
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] if they get some of those mega awards against them you know they're not going to sit there and lose money if they're losing money then they're going to raise rates
[speaker001:] right that they have to
[speaker002:] so it all comes filtering down to us all individually individually individually
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] and uh granted some people need to be compensated if they have really been wronged
[speaker001:] well
[speaker002:] you know
[speaker001:] how do you feel about setting like well for example a a car type accident where uh or some incident where someone loses a limb do you think that jury should have a dollar figure for losing an arm a dollar figure for losing different body parts it
[speaker002:] I don't know you know some of the health insurance is written that way you know that uh if you buy an accident and death or dismemberment policy you know it specifies pre specifies in the policy uh so much but I don't know that you can necessarily put a a value on somebody's limb uh arbitrarily that is always going to fit in all cases I think maybe
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] you look at uh the age of the person and their station in life and and uh how much longer they have of work years that they would have to put up you know with with that I mean maybe you don't award an eighty five year old guy the same thing that you'd award a twenty one year old
[speaker001:] hm
[speaker002:] I I think it has to be some kind of common sense applied there and that may be where the judiciary is a little more learned about that stuff type of thing because they can be schooled in that kind of thing and it could be part of continuing education maybe for judges I don't know you know to get into the economics of things uh
[speaker001:] um-hum yeah right
[speaker002:] because if they wheel somebody into a courtroom and the jury's heart goes out to that person and they do one of these mega awards it really you know ultimately is not penalizing the person that they're trying to get anyway
[speaker001:] yeah that's true
[speaker002:] if it's a company you know that they're insured unless the award is so staggering that it goes all beyond their layers of insurance which is another pet peeve of mine when they do award punitive damages I think those should be uninsurable I think those should have to be paid by the corporation itself that that did the damage
[speaker001:] hm oh out of their as opposed to the corporation insurance paying the bills
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] type thing
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] uh-huh well we're
[speaker002:] for for honest mistakes where they've done something and and something happens one of their employees causes damage or something sure that's what they buy insurance for but
[speaker001:] what who who do they get they get insured they get insured from other insurance companies or how does that work
[speaker002:] well I was just talking about any company
[speaker001:] oh okay your talking about corporate
[speaker002:] uh let's just say a lumber manufacturing company and uh somebody is on the premises and one of the employees actually is driving by with a forklift and he pushes the wrong button and he drops a load of lumber on somebody and it injures them sure insurance should pay for that
[speaker001:] sure okay well but in some instances you're going to put companies out of business by taking that stance if they have to take it out of their own retained earnings
[speaker002:] well I'm not talking about any loss I was talking about only losses that are judged for a punitive damage which is another category of the juries are awarding damages these days based on the person's actual injuries and what they're due and then they're awarding a second amount as punishment to the company which is a lot usually a lot less but it's uh an amount their designed to sting them a little for their negligence for gross wanton negligence in a claim
[speaker001:] okay for oh um-hum
[speaker002:] and unfortunately the jury the lately the courts have been deciding that those could be paid for by insurance too
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] so again it never really penalizes the company doing the wrong they can go right on doing the same old thing they always used to
[speaker001:] right they don't hm
[speaker002:] and if they if they know some practice is wrong you know I'm not talking about your isolated occurrences I'm talking more about the you know the thing that they know maybe they're willfully manufacturing something that they know is hurting people out there and they continue to do it even after they become aware of that
[speaker001:] sure okay
[speaker002:] then I think they ought to have to pay something out of their own pocket