Jury Trials In 2024

As courthouses across the country continue to face backlogs of cases, Trial Methods set out to take the pulse of the public by collecting data online from 430 jury-eligible people from 15 counties across the country. These counties were selected because they represent a range of geographically, demographically and politically diverse subsets of the population. This annual survey has been conducted since 2017.   

Jurors were asked to rate the following on their honesty, using a scale from “1” (not very honest) to “7” (very honest). The list below is in descending order of perceived honesty, which starts with doctors who were rated the most honest, to politicians who jurors deemed the least honest. This order is consistent from prior years.

Doctors

Scientists

Accounting Firms

Retail Pharmacies

Banks

Nursing Homes

Religious Institutions

Lawyers

Pharmaceutical Companies

Media

Politicians

Direction of the Country; Economic Outlook

43% of respondents are pessimistic about the future of the country while 57% are optimistic. This finding correlates with political leaning and which candidate jurors voted for in 2020 and which candidate they plan to support in 2024. Democrats and Biden supporters are more hopeful than their Republican and Trump-voting counterparts. 

28% said the current economy is personally causing them a lot of stress.

17% indicate it is very difficult to make ends meet given the current economy.

Lawsuits Against Corporations

29% strongly agree with the idea of awarding punitive damages. This is up 7% from a year ago when 22% were adamantly in favor of punitive damages, and up 12% from our 2022 survey when 17% were strongly in favor of punitive damages.

When asked about allegations of corporate misconduct, 70% said they would be more likely to believe the company did something wrong, while 30% took this to mean someone is trying to get some easy money. This has been a fairly consistent breakdown in recent years.

75% of respondents believe individuals who file lawsuits are trying to place responsibility where it belongs, while 25% feel people suing are refusing to take responsibility for their actions. 

66% agree that making corporations pay big jury awards is the best way to make them follow the law. This is another consistent finding from prior years.

44% say it would be difficult to deliver a jury verdict that meant an injured party would receive no money.

72% indicate if a case makes it to trial there is likely some truth to the plaintiff’s claims. This is 10% higher than last year. 

65% believe plaintiffs often exaggerate their claims in order to increase damage awards. This is a relatively consistent finding since 2017.

Corporate Ethics

65% agree that corporations are more unethical today than they were 5 years ago. This is down 6% from last year’s finding. 

52% agree that juries should punish corporations for unethical conduct even if that conduct was legal. This is consistent with years prior. 

Corporation Versus Corporations

62% think companies frequently sue other companies for bad business deals (up 3% from last year). 

72% say a company will break a contract if it thinks it can get away with it. This percentage has been consistent over the 7-year span but is up slightly (3%) from last year.

Employment Litigation

When asked how common race discrimination on the job in the U.S. is, 45% said common and 20% said very common. This has not significantly changed from 2022.

When asked how common gender discrimination on the job in the U.S. is, 50% said common and 19% said very common. This also has not significantly changed from 2022. 

77% believe we need to strengthen laws against employer discrimination in this country. This is 4% higher than it was a year ago. 

Social Inflation

51% agreed with the following statement: “Given the high cost of living nowadays if I was awarding damages to a plaintiff I would err on the side of a higher monetary amount.” This is down from 54% one year ago.

71% agreed that if they were awarding money to a plaintiff, they would take into consideration that the cost of living has increased. This is up 7% from last year.

68% of respondents felt that they would expect damage awards to increase these days due to everything costing a lot more. This is up from 63% in 2023.