I answered my civic summons to jury duty this week. One day, Monday. I confess to being annoyed by this as I have Things To Do this week and would have preferred another week. I do not object to being called to jury duty. I think it’s important. The last time, I was selected but never got the chance to serve because the judge had had a ruling overturned and they had to start all over. I was disappointed in that one, it would have been fascinating as both lawyers appeared to be at the top of their game and it was a murder trial with some interesting features. Ah, well.
This time, though it was a civil case.
I reported to the court building on time, got my number, and settled down to read a book until called. As it turned out, I only got 20 pages read before that, and I was the third number called.
It became clear fairly quickly that this was not something that would be especially interesting (in fact, about 30 minutes into voir dire I more or less deduced the issue). An insurance suit, the twist being that the plaintiff was suing his own insurance company. There was man at the defendant’s table wearing a rather ordinary polo and a drawn, permanently discommoded expression who was the representative of the insurer. The plaintiff was a rather well-dressed man who did, after watching him for a time, seem to be limited in his movements. The lawyers seemed competent if underwhelming. This was a bookkeeping matter that had gotten contentious and if my assumption was correct, my sympathies already lay with the plaintiff.
The complication—and the reason for the suit—was that the driver who had caused the accident at the heart of all this had fled and no one knew who he was, so he/she and their insurer could not be sued. (My assumption therefore is that the plaintiff filed an injury claim with his own company and was denied.)
We all had little white paddles with our seat number and when answering questions or asking them we were to hold them up so the court recorder could efficiently identify us. The plaintiff’s attorney finished up by lunch, we broke for food, and returned for the defendant’s attorney.
That’s when things got interesting.
He wanted to establish that we could all fairly judge the facts of the case (fair enough) and treat the insurance company like any other person. He then pointedly asked if we could accept the company as a person.
I felt a tingle over my scalp.
Several paddles went up to admit that, no, we could not. He then said, “Corporations, according to the law, are people. Do you disagree with this?”
Someone said, “No, I can’t. Corporations are not people.”
“Anyone else feel this way?” the lawyer asked.
And a flurry of discussion erupted around the jury pool about that. When it wound down, he pushed “Even though it’s the law?”
That’s when I opened my mouth. “It is the law, but we all know it’s a legal fiction. It’s used as a convenience to circumvent certain procedural difficulties for the purpose of an expedited trial. Of course a corporation is not a person. An individual generally doesn’t have a machine behind them.”
He blinked at me. “What does that matter?”
“Well,” I said, “you can’t actually put a corporation on the witness stand. At best, you get a representative. He’s limited in what he can say by prior instructions. The entity giving the instructions is not actually present. Responsibility becomes a moving target.”
Everyone—all the lawyers, the court clerk, the judge, many of the potential jurors—was staring at me. The defendant’s attorney’s mouth opened, then closed.
And then several people pointed at me and said “I agree with what he said.”
The questions wrapped up quickly then and we were sent out of the courtroom while the selections were made. In the hall, a woman came up to me.
“Are you a lawyer?”
“No, I’m a writer.”
“Oh. What do you write?”
“Science fiction.”
“Oh, well that figures,” she said and walked away. I wanted to ask what she meant, but I never got the chance.
When the selections were made, not one of the people who had voiced doubts about corporate personhood was chosen. Predictable if a bit disappointing. As we were all receiving our slips of paper confirming our service, several people smiled at me. I assume they all had pressing matters to attend that jury duty would have made more difficult.
Thus endeth my current civic duty. I do have to wonder what they would have done had everyone in that pool voiced the same skepticism. Well, draw another pool, yes. But then…
