Lawsuits condemning cigarettes and guns are nothing new. Advocacy groups have campaigned for years against the tobacco and firearms industries, using the courts as a weapon. What is new is that juries are listening. But they add a new element. Jurors in these cases were staking out new territory in American law, asserting their interest in issues broader than the behavior of a single corporate defendant.
Jurors are ready to believe that they are the public avengers.
The recent verdicts are part of a pattern of juror activism across the country that also includes so-called juror nullification, in which juries have let criminal defendants go free, despite the weight of the evidence against them, in protest of particular laws. In the current product liability disputes, jurors say their verdicts are based on the evidence in the case. But, as with nullification, they also appear to be giving freer rein to their own sense of justice. This increased willingness to find against the tobacco and gun industries has released a torrent of new litigation and could have wide repercussions for other businesses and people who claim they have been hurt by their products. And since the groundbreaking Brooklyn gun verdict in February, the firearms industry has faced an onslaught of lawsuits.