Toxic Risks from Jury Decisions

Some day you may be on a jury trial, and it may be about “toxic” chemicals.  Although you may be instructed by the judge to only consider the evidence that is shown to you by plaintiff and defense lawyers, the lawyers know that you bring your own life’s experiences and your own thoughts and prejudices into the courtroom. That’s why each side gets to reject jurors whom they can show will not fairly consider their evidence and arguments. Nevertheless, to reach the goal set by Lady Justice of being impartial and fair, it helps to bring some knowledge of risk and risk substitutions.

Toxic torts are growing fast. A toxic tort case is one where you will have to judge if a company is either negligent or intentionally exposing an individual to a toxin, or even if the product is somehow “defective.” The product may be a substance like asbestos or a chemical. It will help if you know something about the science of poisons—toxicology. Toxicology began with a German-Swiss physician and alchemist, Paracelsus. He was from a rich family and attended multiple universities where he wondered how “the high colleges managed to produce so many high asses.”

Read the full piece on my Substack here.