No one records all the rules and decisions of the huge and decentralized jury system. Forty-two states have restricted the types of cases that juries can hear. Federal appeals courts and the high courts of more than a dozen states have taken whole areas of decision-making away from juries. Depending on the type of case, for example, judges now evaluate expert witnesses or determine the motives of criminal defendants. Thousands of companies, including leading personal computer makers, require customers to surrender all rights to jury trials in future disputes as a condition of doing business.
Many companies demand the same of employees.
Though legal, such agreements are often buried in what seems to be routine paperwork and are signed unknowingly. More judges are reversing verdicts or halting cases before they get that far - powers they have long had but historically have used sparingly. Recent Texas Supreme Court rulings, for example, encourage judges to more closely scrutinize certain kinds of verdicts and require dismissal of more cases before trial. A significant minority of trial judges in Texas and federal judges across the country would tighten the leash further, according to surveys conducted by The News and the SMU School of Law. Nearly 30 percent said juries should decide fewer types of lawsuits.