Duval County made history by holding the nation’s first remote civil trial with a binding verdict and it went well, the attorney for the plaintiffs told the Florida Record.
The case was a lawsuit filed by a club dancer who claimed she was assaulted by two bouncers after a dispute over being fired, the Jacksonville Daily Record reported.
The jury, which heard the case remotely, awarded the plaintiff $354,833 in damages.
“I have to give tremendous compliments to the Duval County information technology staff,” said the attorney for the dancer, Matthew Kachergus of Sheppard, White, Kachergus & DiMaggio. “Without their assistance, there is no way this could have been pulled off.”
The defendant did not show up for the trial, Kachergus said.
“Their attorney withdrew, and since they are a corporation, they can only appear through counsel,” he said. “Without an attorney, they didn’t appear and I guess they chose not to defend it.”
No opposition meant that Kachergus could pick the jury he wanted, eliminating people he didn’t want.
“You are able to pick what you think will be a favorable jury and there’s nobody challenging your case,” he said. “That has more to do with the verdict than the technology. I don’t think the technology is going to favor one side over the other. It’s probably a wash.”
He could envision a remote trial potentially favoing defendants in civil cases because it “softens some of the emotion” of testimony, he said.
“You are looking at it on a screen instead as opposed to feeling it live,” he said.
Going forward, the real problem with resuming regular in-person jury trials will be jury selection since it will require bringing large numbers of people to the courthouse in tight quarters where social distancing is difficult, the attorney said.
“I can see in the not too distant future, push from the courts to try to do jury selection remotely, but then possibly bring folks in to do live trials where it’s a little more feasible to engage in social distancing,” he said.
For the recent trial of the club dancer’s lawsuit, the jury was chosen remotely.
“You had jurors appearing from their homes,” Kachergus said. “At one point, a guy was laying down and looking at his phone. The judge had to ask him if we was OK. He was just getting a little comfortable with the process, shall we say.”