(no subject)
So, Jury Duty sucks. If you ever sue anyone, settle, because you don’t want your hopes for money to be contingent on assholes like me.
I had to sit there for 4 hours until I finally got called, right before lunch. Originally I wasn’t worried too much, because they called 35 people and only needed 12, and no one should ever entrust serious matters that I don’t care about to me. But apparently I look good on paper. I have a white collar job, a car, pay my bills and taxes, etc. So I was selected. Because we didn’t get started until 2PM, and court closes at 5, it was a two day trial. Yet another day that I had to wake up at 6AM to walk in the snow. Bitches.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if the case wasn’t retarded. Two years ago we had a freak snow day. There wasn’t anything big about the snow, as it was only like 2-3 inches, but no one was expecting it. So the bus that this chick was on got stuck, just like 3 other buses on that street, and so everyone got off the bus. This chick slipped after she got off the bus and broke her ankle, and now wants $150k from Trimet. $100k of that is for pain and suffering. I knew how I was going to vote as soon as I heard that, even before the opening arguments.
Her main complaint was that “Trimet made her get off the bus”, which was proved to be bullshit, as they don’t force people off the bus. This was near the college, so what I assume happened was that all the college students started deboarding to get to school and she just assumed they were being kicked off the bus. My question was “What did she expect to happen if she stayed on the bus?”. I mean, she can’t stay there for 3 days until the snow melts, so it would still be icy and slippery when she eventually did get off the bus. Unless she expected them to fly some giant helicopter in and swoop the bus up like in that retarded hacker movie with the otherwise awesome Wolverine in it.
The lawyers were stoned. They had to have been. Trimet Lawyer Lady couldn’t keep anything straight, and we kept having to pause for 5 minutes while she rifled through her papers. And the plaintiff lawyer guy was just stupid. And he had this hypnotic sleazy courtroom voice that annoyed the hell out of me.
The jury itself was ok, except for the two retarded people. I don’t mean stupid, I mean those people who are borderline developmentally disabled. You can tell because their faces are all droopy and they can’t finish a single sentence in under 5 minutes because they keep losing track of if they are speaking or not.
It was a unanimous decision in Trimets corner. At least it was until we told the courtroom that we ruled in favour of Trimet. Then the girl started crying and her lawyer asked for a Poll, where we all had to say out loud one at a time if we did in fact rule that way. The two retarded people changed their vote when they saw the girl crying. I figured they would because they kept wanting to change their vote in deliberation because they felt bad for the girl. Luckily it was still 10-2 and you only need 9-3 to carry.
At least I’m glad that it’s over. Still, it gives me no real respect for the justice system, because I know of at least 3 other people on our Jury that had decided to vote against the girl before we even started.
I had to sit there for 4 hours until I finally got called, right before lunch. Originally I wasn’t worried too much, because they called 35 people and only needed 12, and no one should ever entrust serious matters that I don’t care about to me. But apparently I look good on paper. I have a white collar job, a car, pay my bills and taxes, etc. So I was selected. Because we didn’t get started until 2PM, and court closes at 5, it was a two day trial. Yet another day that I had to wake up at 6AM to walk in the snow. Bitches.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if the case wasn’t retarded. Two years ago we had a freak snow day. There wasn’t anything big about the snow, as it was only like 2-3 inches, but no one was expecting it. So the bus that this chick was on got stuck, just like 3 other buses on that street, and so everyone got off the bus. This chick slipped after she got off the bus and broke her ankle, and now wants $150k from Trimet. $100k of that is for pain and suffering. I knew how I was going to vote as soon as I heard that, even before the opening arguments.
Her main complaint was that “Trimet made her get off the bus”, which was proved to be bullshit, as they don’t force people off the bus. This was near the college, so what I assume happened was that all the college students started deboarding to get to school and she just assumed they were being kicked off the bus. My question was “What did she expect to happen if she stayed on the bus?”. I mean, she can’t stay there for 3 days until the snow melts, so it would still be icy and slippery when she eventually did get off the bus. Unless she expected them to fly some giant helicopter in and swoop the bus up like in that retarded hacker movie with the otherwise awesome Wolverine in it.
The lawyers were stoned. They had to have been. Trimet Lawyer Lady couldn’t keep anything straight, and we kept having to pause for 5 minutes while she rifled through her papers. And the plaintiff lawyer guy was just stupid. And he had this hypnotic sleazy courtroom voice that annoyed the hell out of me.
The jury itself was ok, except for the two retarded people. I don’t mean stupid, I mean those people who are borderline developmentally disabled. You can tell because their faces are all droopy and they can’t finish a single sentence in under 5 minutes because they keep losing track of if they are speaking or not.
It was a unanimous decision in Trimets corner. At least it was until we told the courtroom that we ruled in favour of Trimet. Then the girl started crying and her lawyer asked for a Poll, where we all had to say out loud one at a time if we did in fact rule that way. The two retarded people changed their vote when they saw the girl crying. I figured they would because they kept wanting to change their vote in deliberation because they felt bad for the girl. Luckily it was still 10-2 and you only need 9-3 to carry.
At least I’m glad that it’s over. Still, it gives me no real respect for the justice system, because I know of at least 3 other people on our Jury that had decided to vote against the girl before we even started.