Word: plaintiff
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
After a non-suit, failure of the plaintiff to come to court, a case automatically goes to judgment, which means that the plaintiffs are assessed for the small costs incurred by the incompleted trial. This may well be easier said than done in the case of the missing pair, an attorney for Hayes-Bickford commented last night...
...stars of the "negligence bar" are courtroom impresarios who seek whopping damages in exchange for a fat cut of the plaintiff's proceeds. Those stars are shining so brightly that jury awards for serious personal injuries are rising by 14% a year and beleaguered insurance companies are crying foul-appealing out-of-court to the public...
...page monograph from Milwaukee's Defense Research Institute, which represents 225 companies and 3,800 defense lawyers. Chief target of the D.R.I, is the ad damnum (damages) clause that puts a specific price tag on the injury at issue. Strictly speaking, the dollar amount a plaintiff is claiming is not supposed to sway juries empaneled to determine actual damages based on trial evidence. But, charges the institute, negligence lawyers are using the ad damnum clause for just that purpose...
...huge verdicts. During the trial, the lawyer keeps repeating the "price," sometimes leaves it on a blackboard as a means of subliminal advertising. To woo jurors, the lawyer may suddenly decrease the price to show "fairness." In an equally dramatic maneuver, he may increase it to suggest that the plaintiff underestimated. Then, as Cleveland's Jury Verdict Research Inc. puts it: "The higher the amount of suit, the higher the point at which the jury begins its deliberations...
...argues that the ad damnum clause should be banished-or at least kept from jurors' ears. Technically, it merely determines which court has jurisdiction over the amount in controversy. (Most kinds of federal court cases, for example, must involve more than $10,000.) In Pennsylvania and Florida, the plaintiff may now plead only that he demands more or less than the jurisdictional amount of a particular court. New Jersey has eliminated the ad damnum clause. British courts long ago barred lawyers from reading the clause to juries, thus focusing full attention on the trial evidence...