Previous research on the civil jury has focused on the magnitude of damage awards as an indicator of perceived liability and has not addressed the processes and strategies used by jurors in determining appropriate damages. This program of experimental research being undertaken by Drs. Loftus and Goodman seeks to examine the ways in which jurors and juries make decisions based on ambiguous and incomplete evidence on economic damages. Using potential jurors drawn from a list of registered voters, two mock-jury experiments are planned that focus on (a) the influence of general versus specific verdict forms on how juries go about awarding economic and non-economic damages and (b) the influence of perceived level of liability and the magnitude of the damages being sought on ultimate damage awards. These experiments promise important scientific contributions to the field: They should illuminate our knowledge of jurors' abilities to follow standard jury instructions distinguishing economic and non-economic considerations. In particular, the experiments should valuably speak to whether an actuarial verdict form is more likely to yield evidence-driven deliberation and a general verdict form more likely to yield verdict-driven discussion. Also, the work should add substantially to our understanding of whether jurors are able to separate issues of liability and damages and whether deliberation enables making that distinction. Finally, by obtaining pre- and post- deliberation data from jurors as well as full deliberation data from juries, these studies should contribute broadly to our knowledge of the impact of group process on legal judgments.
