Prejudice

If your personal injury claim goes to court in Georgia, a jury will decide the case. People from the general population are chosen at random to serve on juries. These people may have all kinds of prejudices, which can affect your case.

People are often wrong about how prejudice works, at least in the courtroom. For example, we hear a lot about racism and sexism in the news. These prejudices are very real, but they don’t usually come up in decisions about personal injury. This is because, in a process called “voir dire,” where your lawyer can explore potential jurors before the trial. 

It’s not hard for a skilled lawyer to weed out people who would treat you unfairly because of your race or gender. But other kinds of bias are prevalent. Most of the prejudice we see in personal injury cases comes from:

• Your personality:  If the jury likes you, they are more likely to feel sorry for you and give you more financial compensation.
• How your injury occurred: If your accident happened while you were doing something lousy, like breaking the law or getting drunk at a bar, the jury is likely to be biased against you.
• The visibility of your injury: Most of the time, juries give more money when they can see how bad an injury is and less money when it is hard to see or understand the injury.

These prejudices can affect any case, including medical malpractice claims, motor vehicle accidents, workplace accidents, and slip and fall cases.