Topic: Juror Concealment

A defense verdict in a medical malpractice case was set aside due to a juror’s failure to disclose nine prior civil lawsuits and a criminal case in response to a written jury questionnaire. Dr. Sohail Delfani, shown smiling in this picture, is probably not very happy with his lawyers who apparently failed to do a proper background check on the venire panel during jury selection in his case. It would […]

Meet Erin – the blogging juror. Right now she is serving on a jury somewhere. Or at least she was last Tuesday and Wednesday. Erin has a blog, and she posted her thoughts about jury duty on her blog last week while she was on the jury: “yeah somebody actually put me on a jury. I guess I will probably be juror number eight, blowing everybody’s minds with charisma and excessive knowledge of forensic […]

Two jurors in a personal injury case concealed their prior felony convictions during jury selection. Convicted felons are not qualified to serve as jurors in Florida pursuant to Fla. Stat. 40.013. In a lengthy well-reasoned opinion, Companioni v. City of Tampa, 32 FLWD840a (Fla 2DCA 2007), the Second District Court of Appeal reinstated a substantial jury verdict for the plaintiff because the defendant was not able to show any “actual prejudice” as a result of the felons serving on a civil jury.

A lawyer who was selected to serve on a jury failed to disclose a prior personal injury claim during jury selection resulting in the reversal of a plaintiff’s verdict at the request of a co-defendant. In Pereda v. Parajon, 957 So. 2d 1194 (Fla. 3DCA 2007), the Third District Court of Appeal found that the lawyer, who is a shareholder in a large firm, clearly concealed her personal injury history. […]