Trial lawyers and judges are frequently ill-prepared to handle cases involving science and technology, warns Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Jackson v. Pollion (2013). Despite the merits of Posner’s critique and the fodder it gives opponents of the civil jury system, Texas judges and trial lawyers, as a rule, are quite comfortable with such issues.
The civil jury trial already plays a diminished role in dispute resolution, and many question its value. Posner’s critique emboldens such critics who seek to further restrict the role of civil jury trials.
