Tag Archives: jury

If you ever have to be judged by a jury of your peers, you’d better hope you’re not an overweight woman facing a jury of men. Researchers at Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity recently reported that a study of simulated jurors’ reactions to the weight of criminal defendants showed that males judged obese women guilty more often than they did lean women. Females didn’t make a distinction according to weight.   Women Judged More Harshly The researchers, …

How private are your posts on Facebook and your tweets on Twitter? If you think the answer depends only on how you configure your privacy or security settings for your accounts, you might be in for a rude awakening – at least if you’re ever involved in a court case. Two recent cases illustrate that if you step into a courthouse – whether intentionally, as a plaintiff in a civil suit, or not so intentionally as a defendant or even …

• Lack of care in nursing home death ends with $200 million jury award. Richard Nunziata turned to attorney Benny Lazzara, Jr. and filed a negligence lawsuit in Pinellas County, Florida, following the death of his 92-year-old mother, Elvira Nunziata, in a fall at her nursing home. The jury’s verdict included $60 million in compensatory damages and $140 million in punitive damages. Lazzara said he asked the jury to make a statement in the case in response to Elvira’s care and …

Here are some news items we thought would interest you. Parents win record-setting $150 billion over son’s injuries, death. For Robert Ray “Robbie” Middleton, the fun and happiness that comes with a birthday didn’t last long. About two weeks before his eight birthday back in 1998, he was sexually assaulted, allegedly by 13-year-old Willburn Collins. On his birthday, Collins allegedly tied Middleton to a tree, poured gas on him and set him on fire. Middleton managed to escape, but suffered …

The Colorado Supreme Court upheld a jury verdict allowing a female truck driver who slipped and fell on spilled grease at a Greeley, CO,  Wal-Mart store to keep a nearly $10 million award.  On the second day of the original trial, 41-year old Holly Averyt’s lawyers found a city document backing up her claim that she fell at the site of a greasy spill at the big box store.  Until that point Wal-Mart had told jurors no spill had occurred.  …