to do in California litigation is fully

inform a jury about the consequences of

their verdict in terms of how the damage

is applied in California we have joint

and several liability for economic

damages but only several liability

apportioned by fault for non-economic

damages that means if a jury finds that

a defendant is one percent liable it

only is liable for one percent of the

non-economic damages however a one

percent finding of liability equates to

a 100 percent finding of liability for

economic damages that’s something that

the jury instructions don’t cover in

California we always submit a special

instruction so that the jury knows what

they’re doing and the consequences of it

if we don’t do that plaintiff’s council

often argue that they want to only be

fair in this case and have the jury

award a small percentage against an

individual defendant like one percent or

five percent but the jury doesn’t know

that that equates to one hundred percent

of the economic damages

when a jury is fully informed of their

decision-making ability and impact they

take it more seriously otherwise it’s a

matter of splitting the baby they don’t

want to disappoint the plaintiff they

don’t want to fully punish the defendant

so they think they’re doing something in

between

but they’re really not