Case Title: Jones v. Cleveland Clinic Foundation

Citation: 2020-Ohio-3780

Docket Number: 2019-0390

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2020-07-23T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as 
Jones v. Cleveland Clinic Found., Slip Opinion No. 2020-Ohio-3780.] 
 
 
 
NOTICE 
This slip opinion is subject to formal revision before it is published in an 
advance sheet of the Ohio Official Reports.  Readers are requested to 
promptly notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of Ohio, 65 
South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or other 
formal errors in the opinion, in order that corrections may be made before 
the opinion is published. 
 
 
SLIP OPINION NO. 2020-OHIO-3780 
JONES, ADMR., APPELLEE, v. CLEVELAND CLINIC FOUNDATION ET AL., 
APPELLANTS. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as Jones v. Cleveland Clinic Found., Slip Opinion No.  
2020-Ohio-3780.] 
Trials—Juror deliberations—Evid.R. 606(B)—Juror’s letter after trial had ended 
expressing regret for changing a vote was evidence of a statement 
concerning a matter about which the juror was precluded from testifying 
under the evidence rule—When only a short time had passed after jury 
restarted deliberations once a substitute juror had been seated, a trial court 
did not err in failing to give a charge relating to deadlocked deliberations. 
(No. 2019-0390―Submitted March 11, 2020―Decided July 23, 2020.) 
APPEAL from the Court of Appeals for Cuyahoga County, 
No. 107030, 2019-Ohio-347. 
_________________ 
DEWINE, J. 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
2
{¶ 1} This case involves a jury verdict rendered late on a Friday evening in 
favor of the defense in a medical-malpractice action.  After the trial was over, one 
of the jurors wrote a letter to the court saying that she regretted her vote and had 
compromised her true beliefs to avoid having to return the following week.  The 
trial court refused to consider the letter and denied the plaintiff’s motion for a new 
trial.  But the court of appeals reversed, determining that the letter could properly 
be considered and that the trial court had abused its discretion in refusing to grant 
a new trial.  We conclude that the court of appeals erred in so doing. 
I. BACKGROUND 
A. ReDon Jones suffers a heart attack after seeking treatment 
{¶ 2} ReDon Jones died of a heart attack.  About two weeks before his 
death, he presented to the Cleveland Clinic’s Hillcrest Hospital complaining of 
chest pains.  A cardiologist evaluated ReDon and ordered that a stress test be 
conducted on a treadmill to determine whether there was evidence of reversible 
ischemia (a decreased blood supply to the heart muscles).  The test was performed 
the following week, and the cardiologist interpreted the results as negative for 
ischemia.  ReDon’s fatal heart attack occurred a week later. 
{¶ 3} Madora Jones, ReDon’s wife and the administrator of his estate, filed 
a wrongful-death and medical-malpractice action against the cardiologist, Hillcrest 
Hospital, and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation (collectively, “the Cleveland 
Clinic”).  The lawsuit alleged that the cardiologist had been negligent in failing to 
order a cardiac catheterization, which would have found ReDon’s blocked coronary 
artery and enabled doctors to save his life. 
B. The jury deliberates and reaches a Friday evening verdict 
{¶ 4} The case proceeded to trial, which began on a Monday.  The parties 
rested on Thursday of the same week, and the jury began deliberations on Friday at 
about 11:00 a.m.  At 12:30 p.m., the jury sent a note to the court asking for 
clarification about the legal definition of the standard of care and alerting the court 
January Term, 2020 
 
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that their votes were evenly split.  The trial court instructed the jury to re-read the 
jury instructions and to continue deliberations. 
{¶ 5} Approximately half an hour later, the jury took a lunch break that 
lasted until 2:15 p.m.  At 5:00 p.m., the jury submitted a second note asking, “We 
are still undecided 4-4.  What should we do?”  After conferring with counsel, the 
trial court submitted a reply at 5:20 p.m. that stated: “Keep deliberating.” 
{¶ 6} Sometime after the second note, a juror requested to be excused due 
to a family emergency.  The trial court asked the jury: “Do you want to continue to 
deliberate if Juror No. 3 has to go?”  The jury responded, “Yes.”  After conferring 
with the attorneys, the court dismissed the juror and empaneled an alternate juror.  
Upon the request of Jones’s counsel, the trial court—at about 7:20 p.m.—instructed 
the jurors that they would “have to restart their deliberations” from the beginning 
with the replacement juror.  The court explained that this meant the jury would have 
to select a new foreperson and supplied the jury with new verdict forms and 
interrogatories. 
{¶ 7} The jury then deliberated for approximately one hour before sending 
a third note around 8:00 p.m. announcing that it was deadlocked four-to-four.  With 
the agreement of counsel for both parties, the court instructed the jury to keep 
deliberating.  About an hour later, the trial court received another note, which 
stated: 
 
We are deadlocked at 50/50.  Everyone is very strong in their 
decision and are not swaying based on the evidence.  How long do 
we have to stay here tonight?  Can we go home?  We are tired, 
cranky, and see no change in our opinions, based on the evidence in 
the foreseeable future. 
 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
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{¶ 8} By this time, it was around 9:30 p.m.  The trial court, with the 
agreement of counsel, decided to send a note to the jurors saying that they could 
leave and come back on Monday morning to resume deliberations.  After delivering 
the message to the jury, the bailiff reported that a couple of jurors reacted to the 
judge’s note by stating, “Come back for what?  We’re not going to change.”  In 
response, the trial court determined that it would read the standard jury instruction 
relating to deadlocked deliberations, commonly known as the Howard charge, State 
v. Howard, 42 Ohio St.3d 18, 537 N.E.2d 188 (1989), paragraph two of the 
syllabus, and discussed with counsel about whether it should read the charge that 
night or on Monday morning. 
{¶ 9} At approximately 10:00 p.m., while the judge and the attorneys were 
still discussing the timing of the Howard charge, the bailiff announced that the jury 
had reached a verdict.  The jury returned to the courtroom, and the trial court 
reviewed the verdict forms and interrogatories.  The court realized that the jurors 
had not completed the general-verdict form and instructed them to return to the jury 
room to complete this form.  At this point, after having watched the judge’s initial 
review of the forms, Jones’s counsel said, “I don’t think we should accept the 
verdict from the jury because of the circumstances involved in the case; that they 
said they were tired, they were cranky, and the Judge said they want to go home.”  
Jones’s counsel, however, did not move for a mistrial. 
{¶ 10} When the jurors returned to the courtroom, the trial court read the 
verdict form and announced the jury had reached a six-to-two verdict in the 
defense’s favor.  The court polled the six jurors in the majority, and each juror 
confirmed their votes. 
C. The postverdict motion for mistrial 
{¶ 11} Jones subsequently filed a motion for a mistrial, asserting that the 
court should have sua sponte declared a mistrial on the night of deliberations rather 
than accept the jury’s verdict.  “Reasonable minds can only conclude,” Jones 
January Term, 2020 
 
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argued, “that [in] moving from [a] strongly deadlocked position to a complete 
about-face less than 30 minutes after being instructed to return Monday at 8:30 am 
that certain jurors surrendered their honest opinion as to the weight of the evidence 
for the mere purpose of returning a verdict and going home.” 
{¶ 12} One month after the trial, while the motion was pending, the trial 
court received a letter from a juror.  In the letter, the juror explained that her juror 
service had been stressful and said that she had ultimately agreed to a defense 
verdict in order to avoid coming back the following week.  She had “felt very 
strongly that the plaintiff was correct in the case and the defendant was negligent.”  
“Yet in the end, to speed the process along,” she wrote, “I and one other juror 
changed our votes as the hour approached 11 p.m.  Now I have to live with that 
decision which went against what I believed was right.” 
{¶ 13} The trial court denied Jones’s motion for a mistrial.  It noted that 
“while it [was] nearly universal that jurors wish to keep their jury duty as short as 
possible,” there was nothing coercive about requiring jurors to return on a Monday 
following a week of jury duty.  In deciding the motion, the court did not consider 
the juror’s letter, concluding that because the juror’s statement did not suggest a 
threat, bribe, or impropriety by an officer of the court, Evid.R. 606(B) precluded its 
use to attack the verdict. 
D. The appeal 
{¶ 14} Jones appealed to the Eighth District Court of Appeals.  Her first 
assignment of error challenged the trial court’s refusal to order a new trial.  The 
court of appeals held that Evid.R. 606(B) did not preclude the court from 
considering the letter because “the juror who wrote the letter did not testify at a 
subsequent proceeding concerning the original verdict.”  2019-Ohio-347, 119 
N.E.3d 490, ¶ 35.  The court further found that “[n]otwithstanding the juror’s letter, 
given the totality of the circumstances surrounding the jury’s deliberations, the trial 
court’s denial of [Jones’s] motion for a mistrial was an abuse of discretion.”  Id. at 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
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¶ 29.  The court also concluded that the trial court had committed plain error in not 
giving a Howard charge after receiving the third and fourth jury notes. 
{¶ 15} After determining that the trial court had erred in not ordering a new 
trial, the court of appeals went on to sustain two other assignments of error, which 
related to the trial court’s rulings on pretrial motions.  The court of appeals did not 
rule on a final assignment of error, which argued that the verdict was against the 
manifest weight of the evidence. 
{¶ 16} The Cleveland Clinic sought discretionary review in this court.  We 
agreed to consider two propositions of law.  The first proposition of law asserts that 
when the jurors are polled and confirm their assent to the verdict, the trial court 
should not inquire into the motivations for the jury’s verdict except under limited 
circumstances.  The second proposition of law presents a related question of 
whether Evid.R. 606(B) precludes a juror statement concerning a matter that the 
juror would be precluded from testifying about under the rule. 
II. ANALYSIS 
A. The court of appeals erred in granting a new trial based on juror 
deliberations 
{¶ 17} In concluding that the trial court should have granted a new trial, the 
court of appeals reached two subsidiary conclusions: (1) that the trial court erred in 
failing to give a Howard charge and (2) that the juror’s letter should have been 
considered by the trial court.  It is not clear from the court of appeals’ opinion the 
extent to which each of these subsidiary conclusions influenced the court’s ultimate 
decision on the new trial issue.  For example, at one point, the court declares that 
“notwithstanding the juror’s letter,” 2019-Ohio-347, 119 N.E.3d 490, at ¶ 29, the 
trial court erred in granting a new trial.  But the court also says that the letter 
“provides even more support,” id. at ¶ 30, for granting a new trial and then engages 
in extensive analysis of whether the letter should have been considered.  In our 
reading, the court of appeals’ analysis of both the juror letter and the Howard charge 
January Term, 2020 
 
7
issue is intertwined with its analysis of the new-trial issue.  Thus, we will consider 
both subsidiary issues before we get to the ultimate question of whether the court 
of appeals was correct in ordering a new trial based on Jones’s first assignment of 
error. 
1. The trial court properly refused to consider the juror letter 
{¶ 18} The question whether a juror may testify about her mental or 
emotional processes during deliberations to impeach a jury verdict is not a novel 
one.  A firmly established common-law rule prohibits the admission of such 
testimony.  State v. Hessler, 90 Ohio St.3d 108, 123, 734 N.E.2d 1237 (2000).  The 
principle “protects the privacy of a jury’s deliberations from inquiry and promotes 
the finality of jury verdicts.”  State v. Mason, 82 Ohio St.3d 144, 167, 694 N.E.2d 
932 (1998).  Evid.R. 606(B), which is grounded in the common-law rule, says: 
 
Upon an inquiry into the validity of a verdict or indictment, 
a juror may not testify as to any matter or statement occurring during 
the course of the jury’s deliberations or to the effect of anything 
upon that or any other juror’s mind or emotions as influencing the 
juror to assent to or dissent from the verdict or indictment or 
concerning the juror’s mental processes in connection therewith.  A 
juror may testify on the question whether extraneous prejudicial 
information was improperly brought to the jury’s attention or 
whether any outside influence was improperly brought to bear on 
any juror, only after some outside evidence of that act or event has 
been presented.  However a juror may testify without the 
presentation of any outside evidence concerning any threat, any 
bribe, any attempted threat or bribe, or any improprieties of any 
officer of the court.  A juror’s affidavit or evidence of any statement 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
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by the juror concerning a matter about which the juror would be 
precluded from testifying will not be received for these purposes. 
 
{¶ 19} Evid.R. 606(B) prohibits juror testimony to impeach a verdict save 
for two circumstances.  First, under what is commonly referred to as the “aliunde 
rule,” a juror may testify about jury misconduct when evidence of that misconduct 
arises from a source outside of the jury.  State v. Schiebel, 55 Ohio St.3d 71, 75-76, 
564 N.E.2d 54 (1990).  Second, even without outside evidence, a juror may testify 
about “any threat, any bribe, any attempted threat or bribe, or any improprieties of 
any officer of the court.”  Evid.R. 606(B).  Plainly, neither exception applies here. 
{¶ 20} Looking to the explicit terms of the rule, there was no “outside 
evidence” that any “outside influence was improperly brought to bear on any juror.”  
A juror’s own impressions of deliberations are not “outside evidence.”  Schiebel at 
75.  And all that Jones offers aside from the juror note is conjecture that jurors felt 
pressured to change their votes because of a desire to avoid further deliberations 
and because of pressure from other jurors who felt the same way.  This does not 
amount to an “outside influence.”  Rather, what Jones complains of is exactly the 
type of internal juror dynamics that the aliunde rule is designed to keep sacrosanct.  
Nor has Jones presented any evidence of a threat, bribe, attempted threat or bribe, 
or impropriety by an officer of the court. 
{¶ 21} Nonetheless, the Eighth District found the rule to be “wholly 
inapplicable” because “the juror who wrote the letter did not testify at a subsequent 
proceeding concerning the original verdict.”  2019-Ohio-347, 119 N.E.3d 490, at  
¶ 35.  In other words, the Eighth District construed Evid.R. 606(B) to preclude only 
sworn juror testimony.  That is a misreading of the rule. 
{¶ 22} The last sentence of the rule is unambiguous: “A juror’s affidavit or 
evidence of any statement by the juror concerning a matter about which the juror 
would be precluded from testifying will not be received for these purposes.”  
January Term, 2020 
 
9
(Emphasis added.)  Evid.R. 606(B).  The juror letter was evidence of a statement 
concerning a matter about which the juror was precluded from testifying under the 
rule.  Thus, it could not be used to impeach the verdict.  The trial court got it right 
when it refused to consider the letter; the court of appeals was wrong. 
2. The trial court did not err in failing to provide a Howard charge 
{¶ 23} At the time the jury reached its verdict, the trial court had decided to 
provide a Howard charge and was discussing with counsel the proper timing of that 
charge.  Previous to this, Jones had not requested that the trial court administer a 
Howard charge.  Nevertheless, the court of appeals concluded that it was plain error 
for the court not to have sua sponte administered a Howard charge after the jury 
sent its third and fourth notes to the judge. 
{¶ 24} The Rules of Civil Procedure do not provide for plain-error review.  
Indeed, “ ‘the idea that parties must bear the cost of their own mistakes at trial is a 
central presupposition of our adversarial system of justice.’ ”  Goldfuss v. 
Davidson, 79 Ohio St.3d 116, 121, 679 N.E.2d 1099 (1997), quoting Montalvo v. 
Lapez, 77 Haw. 282, 305, 884 P.2d 345 (1994), (Nakayama, J., concurring in part 
and dissenting in part).  Thus, we have explained that in recognizing plain error in 
a civil case, a court must proceed with utmost caution, limiting use of the doctrine 
to “the extremely rare case involving exceptional circumstances where error, to 
which no objection was made at the trial court, seriously affects the basic fairness, 
integrity, or public reputation of the judicial process, thereby challenging the 
legitimacy of the underlying judicial process itself.”  Id.  Nothing in the facts before 
us makes this one of those extremely rare cases in which civil plain-error review is 
appropriate.  Id.  Indeed, we find no error, plain or otherwise. 
{¶ 25} A Howard charge reminds deadlocked jurors that their duty is to 
decide the case if they can conscientiously do so.  Ohio Jury Instructions, CV 
Section 31.907 (Rev.Feb. 25, 2012).  It challenges them to try a final time to reach 
consensus.  State v. Robb, 88 Ohio St.3d 59, 81, 723 N.E.2d 1019 (2000).  There is 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
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no set period of time after which a court must give a Howard charge.  Indeed, the 
trial judge, who has followed the course of juror deliberations and who has the 
benefit of nuanced observation of the jury, is generally in a far better position than 
a reviewing court to determine the appropriate timing of such a charge.  Thus, a 
trial court’s decision whether and when to provide the instruction is a matter within 
the court’s discretion and is reviewed only for an abuse of that discretion.  See State 
v. Brown, 100 Ohio St.3d 51, 2003-Ohio-5059, 796 N.E.2d 506, ¶ 37. 
{¶ 26} The court of appeals concluded that the judge should have given the 
Howard charge when the jury sent its third note to the judge around 8:00 p.m.  
Remember, though, that only an hour before, the jury had been instructed to restart 
its deliberations from the beginning upon the replacement of the juror who was 
excused.  In light of the relatively short time that had elapsed since deliberations 
commenced anew, we find no abuse of discretion in the trial court’s failure to 
supply a Howard charge after the third juror note. 
{¶ 27} Nor do we find any error in the trial court’s failure to give a Howard 
charge after the fourth juror note.  Upon receiving the fourth note, the trial court 
instructed the jury to return the next week, determined to provide a Howard charge, 
and undertook a discussion with counsel about the proper timing of such a charge.  
Only the abrupt announcement that the jury had reached a verdict prevented the 
charge from being administered. 
3. The trial court properly refused to order a new trial 
{¶ 28} Having concluded that the court of appeals erred in its conclusions 
that the trial court should have considered the juror’s letter and should have given 
a Howard charge, we turn to the ultimate question: should the trial court have 
granted a new trial?  
{¶ 29} We agree with the court of appeals that Jones’s postverdict motion 
for a mistrial is best analyzed under the standards for a motion for new trial set forth 
in Civ.R. 59.  Civ.R. 59(A) allows for a new trial upon the following grounds: 
January Term, 2020 
 
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(1) Irregularity in the proceedings of the court [or] jury, * * * 
or abuse of discretion, by which an aggrieved party was prevented 
from having a fair trial; 
(2) Misconduct of the jury or prevailing party. 
 
In addition, the rule contains a catch-all provision that a new trial may be granted 
“in the sound discretion of the trial court for good cause shown.”  Civ.R. 59(A). 
{¶ 30} We find no misconduct or irregularity that warrants a new trial.  
Having excluded the juror’s letter, we are left with the mere fact that the jury broke 
a deadlock and returned a verdict soon after it was told to come back on Monday.  
There is no evidence that the jurors breached their oaths.  There is no evidence of 
any improper outside influence.  And nothing in the jury’s notes to the judge 
suggests any misconduct. 
{¶ 31} Furthermore, there was nothing extraordinary about the length of the 
jury deliberations here.  The jury had only been deliberating for a single day—about 
12 hours inclusive of breaks—at the time it reached its verdict.  And from the time 
that it was instructed to begin deliberations anew, the jury had been deliberating for 
fewer than three hours. 
{¶ 32} It is true that deliberations extended fairly late into Friday night.  But 
this occurred at the jury’s choice—the judge asked the jurors if they wanted to 
continue deliberations when one juror had to leave, and they responded that they 
did.  And while the jury was told that it would have to come back the next week, 
there is nothing unusual about jury deliberations proceeding into the following 
week. 
{¶ 33} Thus, we find none of the grounds set forth in Civ.R. 59(A)(1) and 
(2) to be present in this case.  As to the catch-all provision, the decision whether to 
grant a new trial is entrusted “to the sound discretion of the trial court.”  Civ.R. 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
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59(A).  We find no abuse of that discretion.  See Jenkins v. Krieger, 67 Ohio St.2d 
314, 320, 423 N.E.2d 856 (1981).  Thus, the court of appeals erred in concluding 
that the matters relating to the jury deliberations warranted a new trial. 
B. Matters to be considered on remand 
{¶ 34} The decision below focused primarily on whether to grant a new trial 
based on the issues surrounding the jury deliberations.  But after resolving those 
issues, the court of appeals reached two other assignments of error.  It concluded 
that the trial court erred in granting the Cleveland Clinic’s motion in limine and that 
the trial court failed to decide discovery motions filed by Jones.  The court also 
declined to reach an assignment of error that asserted that the jury’s verdict was 
against the weight of the evidence.  Though these issues are beyond the propositions 
of law we accepted, we need to say something about them in order to appropriately 
frame a remand order. 
{¶ 35} The court of appeals found that the trial court erred in granting a 
motion in limine that precluded Jones from introducing a portion of the deposition 
testimony of a Cleveland Clinic cardiac sonographer.  Because we declined to 
accept a proposition of law on that issue, we have no occasion to revisit the court 
of appeals’ decision on it in this proceeding. 
{¶ 36} The court of appeals did not, however, discuss whether Jones 
suffered any prejudice as a result of the trial court’s ruling, that is, whether the jury 
would have arrived at a different verdict were it not for the purported error.  See 
Hayward v. Summa Health Sys./Akron City Hosp., 139 Ohio St.3d 238, 2014-Ohio-
1913, 11 N.E.3d 243, ¶ 25.  In its brief, the Cleveland Clinic asserts that the Eighth 
District never analyzed whether Jones was prejudiced, noting that Jones did not use 
at trial other related parts of the deposition transcript that the trial court held were 
admissible.  This is a matter appropriately left to the court of appeals in the first 
instance.  Thus, on remand, the court of appeals should determine whether Jones 
January Term, 2020 
 
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was prejudiced by the trial court’s limitation on the use of the cardiac sonographer’s 
testimony. 
{¶ 37} In a single paragraph at the close of the opinion, the court of appeals 
sustained an assignment of error relating to the trial court’s failure to rule on pretrial 
discovery motions filed by Jones and directed the court to rule on the motions upon 
remand.  The Cleveland Clinic cites the general rule that when a trial court fails to 
rule on a pretrial motion, it is presumed to have been overruled, State ex rel. The V 
Cos. v. Marshall, 81 Ohio St.3d 467, 469, 692 N.E.2d 198 (1998), and argues that 
any error concerning the motions was not prejudicial.  Again, these arguments are 
beyond the propositions of law accepted by this court and should be addressed to 
the court of appeals on remand. 
{¶ 38} Finally, the court of appeals did not reach Jones’s final assignment 
of error, which asserted that the jury verdict was against the manifest weight of the 
evidence.  The court should do so on remand. 
III. CONCLUSION 
{¶ 39} The court of appeals erred when it sustained Jones’s first assignment 
of error and held that the trial court should have ordered a new trial.  We remand 
the case to the court of appeals for consideration of the remaining assignments of 
error in a manner consistent with this opinion. 
Judgment reversed 
and cause remanded. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and KENNEDY, FRENCH, FISCHER, CALLAHAN, and 
STEWART, JJ., concur. 
STEWART, J., concurs, with an opinion. 
LYNNE S. CALLAHAN, J., of the Ninth District Court of Appeals, sitting for 
DONNELLY, J. 
_________________ 
STEWART, J., concurring. 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
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{¶ 40} I concur in the decision reached by the majority, but I write 
separately to state my concerns about the trial court’s management of the jury in 
this case and the perils that improper management can have on jury verdicts. 
{¶ 41} “Jury service is a public duty, and every citizen should willingly 
serve when called upon. In return, it behooves society to make jury service as 
pleasant and as little burdensome as possible, rather than rendering it an ordeal or 
impossible for many.”  State v. Osborne, 10th Dist. Franklin No. 75AP-327, 1976 
Ohio App. LEXIS 6149, at *30 (May 11, 1976) (Whiteside, J., concurring). 
{¶ 42} The nearly 11 hours that the jury deliberated on the final day of this 
case became an ordeal.  And those deliberations did not begin until after the jury 
had sat through closing arguments and the jury charge that morning.  By the end of 
the day, the jury had sent a note to the court indicating that the jurors were “tired” 
and “cranky.”  It should come as no surprise that the jurors were tired and cranky 
under these circumstances.  Even the court and counsel for appellants blamed their 
fatigue for their inability to accurately recollect the timing of the day’s events.  
Under these conditions, the jurors could not have been expected to perform to the 
best of their ability. 
{¶ 43} By not suspending deliberations for the day, the court tried to 
accommodate the jury’s expectation that the court would conclude the jury’s 
service that day.  The court told the prospective jurors during voir dire, “I promise 
you this case will be efficient and move.  It will be in your hands by Friday so you 
can at least—that is my promise to you.  If I don’t get there, I failed.”  True, the 
court simply promised the jury that it would begin deliberations by Friday (a 
promise that the court kept).  But it is also easy to see that the jurors might have 
understood the court’s goal to be that they would conclude their service by the end 
of the day on Friday.  It goes without saying that jurors have lives outside the 
courtroom.  And unlike the personnel being paid to perform their respective duties 
during the trial, or the parties who have a direct stake in the jury’s verdict, citizens 
January Term, 2020 
 
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who serve on a jury gain no tangible benefit for doing so, apart from a small per 
diem meant to cover their expenses.  It is just their civic duty to serve.  But our 
system of jury service does jurors a disservice by the way we sometimes treat them.  
One example is by asking them to change their life plans at the last minute.  Trial 
courts could avoid this by refraining from making promises that risk creating 
expectations the trial court may be unable to keep.  It is unfair to the jurors and 
unfair to the parties to require a jury to render a verdict when the primary focus of 
the jurors is the end of their jury service. 
{¶ 44} These problems are all apparent in this case.  Regardless of which 
side prevails, the confidence in a jury verdict rendered under circumstances like 
these is tenuous at best.  The option the court gave to the jury of continuing 
deliberations into the late hours of a Friday evening or returning on Monday 
morning left the jury between a rock and a hard place.  It is no surprise that under 
circumstances like this, jurors might put their own personal interests above the 
interests of the parties. 
{¶ 45} “ ‘Twenty-nine percent of adult Americans have served as trial 
jurors at some point in their lives.  The remaining 71% of us live with, live next to, 
work with, or otherwise hear about the experiences—good and bad—from the 29% 
who have lived it first-hand.’ ”  National Center for State Courts Center for Jury 
Studies, 
Tom 
Munsterman, 
Director 
Emeritus, 
Mission 
Statement, 
http://www.ncsc-jurystudies.org/who-we-are/mission (accessed June 25, 2020) 
[https://perma.cc/HN33-EY4R].  The judiciary must ensure that citizens endure the 
least amount of burden, hardship, and inconvenience as possible when serving on 
a jury and that parties have their cases decided fairly and on the merits.  To the 
extent there is anything that interferes with this responsibility, we need to do better.  
Not doing so fails to respect and appreciate the importance of jury service and 
undermines the judicial system. 
_________________ 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
 
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The Mellino Law Firm, L.L.C., Christopher M. Mellino, Meghan C. 
Lewallen, Margo Kay Moore, and Calder C. Mellino; and Paul W. Flowers Co., 
L.P.A., Paul W. Flowers, and Louis E. Grube, for appellee. 
Roetzel & Andress, L.P.A., Stephen W. Funk, Emily K. Anglewicz, R. 
Mark Jones, and Tammi J. Lees, for appellants. 
Reminger Co., L.L.C., and Brian D. Sullivan, urging reversal for amicus 
curiae Academy of Medicine of Cleveland and Northern Ohio. 
_________________