Stop that cursed jury, cried the attendant and the nurse....

So this past week I had jury duty. 

It's the third time I had jury selection duty, and the fourth jury I was on.   Unlike the previous three (two when I was in college, one 7 years ago) this was a civil, not criminal trial.  And I was chosen as an alternate, not an actual juror.  I was in fact, the fourth alternate.  Which means, four of the twelve actual jurors would have to get sick/have an emergency/become unavailable for me to get to deliberate.  
What a waste of my time.  

In fact the whole trial was a waste, and boring. 

A couple was suing a water treatment/well company.   The gist of it was, they contracted the company to come out and test the water.  The company sent someone out, he got the samples, did a field test of the water, and then sent them off to a lab for analysis.  When the results came back 8 days later, he sent them to the couple a long with his recommendations on how to correct the several problems, and sent an estimate.

And the couple did....nothing.   Apparently, the guy, who had 'extensive construction and renovation experience' decided he would do it all himself cheaper.  But when he got into it, it turns out there was a LOT more involved in the process.  And now, 5 years later, they STILL haven't made the corrections the company guy recommended.  

But they were suing the guy and the company because if they had told the couple all the other problems before hand they would not have bought the house, nor incurred all the expenses.  They were suing for around $84000!  

But they never told the company employee OR the company to look at anything else.  just to take the samples.  Not to check the well, not to check the flow capacity of the well, not anything other than what the employee tested for.  And they didn't take his recommendations ANYWAY! 

All throw the 2.5 days, I'm sitting there thinking, well this is dumb.  There is clearly no negligence on the part of the defendants.  I kept an open mind, waiting for the couple to present something that changed that perception.  But they never did.  And when the plaintiffs rested, I was shocked.  They had made no case.  At the point in time, the defense, to my mind, didn't have to say a word, they could have rested too.  But of course, they didn't know that.  And I didn't know how the other jurors felt either.  So they did have to put on a case. 

And their case, their lawyer, were frankly monumentally better than the plaintiffs'.   But the case too, was monumentally better towards the defendants. 

So after closing arguments and the judge's instructions, he sent to jury back to the jury room, keeping the alternates in the courtroom.  Then, he excused myself and alternate #3, saying to stay by our phones in case he needed to call us back to the courthouse.  And we were still under the sequestration rules.  When all was done, he would call us both and tell us the verdict and release us from service.  So the two of us got to leave after about two hours and go home.  That was nice.  I felt bad for the other two alternates, cause they had to stay there and wait until a verdict was rendered in case they needed to replace one or two of the jurors.  

It was only an hour and a half later that the judge himself called me.  He told me it was over, the jury had found for the defendant, which is exactly how I would have found.  And they did it quickly too.  

So in the end, everything came out the way I would have voted, and justice was served.  But damn, three days of my life spent in boredom.  Ah, well, I did my civic duty (that's twice this month, as I voted and sent it in earlier in October too) and now I'm free from being called for a jury for three yet. 

POLT

---