After the Jury's Verdict?

[charles mueller <cmueller@metrolink.net>]

        On the case statistics, Michael Miller reports that (per the
Administrative Office of U.S. Courts), the number of jury verdicts in
antitrust cases--and for the plaintiffs--were as follows in 1993-95:

        1993            17              14
        
        1994            17              16

        1995            19              15

        In other words, an average of some 18 cases went to trial before
juries in those 3 years and in 15 of them (83%) the juries' verdicts were
for the plaintiffs.

        On average, then, 1.5 antitrust cases were given a jury trial in
each of the country's 12 judicial circuits.  (Roughly 600 cases were filed
each year in the U.S. courts during that period, or 50 per circuit.)

        Why such a high 'win' rate for the plaintiffs (83%) in these 18
cases that were actually heard by juries each year, particularly since the
trial judges undoubtedly gave them, on average, jury 'instructions' that
were highly favorable to the defense? The answer, one suspects, is that
these 18, having survived the usual pretrial gauntlet of motions to dismiss
and for summary judgment, were exceptionally strong cases.  In addition,
juries are known to be quite fair in antitrust matters.

        What we don't know here, though, is what ultimately happened to
those 15 jury verdicts for antitrust plaintiffs?  The trial judge has the
power to overturn them if he doesn't think they're 'reasonable.'  In
deciding what's reasonable, he looks to his higher court's (appeals court of
the circuit) recent rulings.  Since he doesn't want to be reversed by his
superiors, he usually overturns the jury verdicts that he doesn't believe
can pass muster in that appellate court.  Virtually no jury verdict for an
antitrust plaintiff passes that test, so the trial judge typically sets them
all aside and lets the robbed plaintiffs take their complaints to the courts
of appeal--where their odds of winning are virtually zero.

        A fair guess would be, then, that of these 15 jury verdicts for the
plaintiffs, at least 10 were overturned by the lower-court judge himself and
4 of the remaining 5 died in his court of appeals.  (I mentioned earlier
that, in a review I did of all antitrust cases in the 12 U.S. appeals court
for a recent year, I found no plaintiff victories.)  

        Charles Mueller, Editor
        ANTITRUST LAW & ECONOMICS REVIEW
        http://webpages.metrolink.net/~cmueller

                                                    *****************