Court Opinion

ID: 9546217
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:26:16.159952+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:16:09.558252
License: Public Domain

RIORDAN, Justice (specially concurring). The main purpose for my specially concurring opinion is to publish the statistics and facts that I believe are going to force this Court or the legislature to take some action to protect litigants that appear in the courts of this state. Petitioner’s evidence presented to the district court contained some very startling statistics that compel a change in venue. The clerk of the district court, at the request of petitioner, surveyed all civil negligence cases that were tried before a jury in the fourth district between 1968 and 1982 (twenty-two cases). The survey showed that during those dates, in all civil jury cases that went to trial before á jury in the fourth district between a resident and a nonresident, the nonresident lost the case. This was true whether the nonresident was the plaintiff or defendant. The clerk of the court, who had worked in the clerk’s" office for over eighteen years, also testified that in her opinion, a nonresident defendant could not get a fair trial before a jury in the fourth district. Another witness, Dr. David Phillips, prepared a statistical analysis of the jury verdicts in the Fourth Judicial District for the same fifteen year period (1968-82). The analysis showed that a resident plaintiff recovered fifty-nine percent of the time when the suit was against a resident defendant. However, the resident plaintiff recovered one hundred percent of the time when the suit was against a nonresident defendant. Dr. Phillips also analyzed the size of the verdicts in the Fourth Judicial District. The analysis showed that when a resident plaintiff recovered from a resident defendant, the average verdict was $33,-907. However, when a resident plaintiff recovered against a nonresident defendant, the average verdict was $268,735. There was additional evidence presented by affidávit and testimony of attorneys and others on both sides of this issue on whether or not a nonresident defendant may receive a fair trial before a jury in the fourth district. It appears to me, that given the statistics and considering the evidence presented, the petitioner has shown that it probably cannot receive a fair trial from a jury in the fourth district. It is hard to conceive of more compelling evidence for the need for a change of venue than that of the testimony of the clerk of the court, stating that a nonresident will not get a fair trial.