What is the right size of a verdict?

A rightsized verdict is one a jury determines will hold accountable those who refuse to be responsible. (Photo: Bigstock)

After the trial, a juror stands in a hallway outside the courtroom, leaning against a wall. She and the rest of her jury had just ordered a trucking company, and unknowingly their insurance company, to pay millions and millions of dollars for the death of a young woman — the largest jury verdict ever in this courtroom.

The defense lawyer, who the insurance company paid to represent this trucking company, walks up in his blue suit with his collar unbuttoned and an undone red tie around his neck and asks, “Why so much? That doesn’t seem right.” The juror steps forward away from the wall, looks the defense lawyer in the eyes, and says, “What we say in our verdict says more about who we are and what we value than what your client did to that young woman.”