ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the nature of American civil trials, detailing the kinds of disputes that they involve and their typical outcomes, and then analyzes civil jury trial practices in other countries. It also reviews the results of psychological research studies that have examined some obstacles to reasoned and predictable decision-making. The chapter outlines the ways that trial procedures are being modified and civil jurors helped to make better, more predictable decisions, along with the psychological data on the effects of the reforms. Systematic analyses of civil jury trials provide information on typical case characteristics and trial outcomes. Three distinct concerns about civil juries can be identified: first, that they are overly sympathetic to plaintiffs in awarding excessive sums of money, especially for punitive damages; second, that they are biased against wealthy, deep-pocketed defendants; and third, that their decisions are unpredictable and arbitrary. Judicial instructions are replete with complicated legal terminologies and concepts that are unfamiliar to most laypeople.
