Did you receive a Notice for jury duty in Minnesota? You might wonder how to get out of jury duty in Minnesota, or how much you get paid for jury duty (jury duty pay). Getting out of jury duty is not easy. It almost never happens. So instead of wondering how to get out of jury service, start thinking about what you will do if you are picked for a car crash jury or personal injury jury trial, and what happens on a jury.
The jury enforces the rules of the community.
You, the juror, represent the community. “It” happened to someone (someone lost a job, cannot pay medical bills, drove drunk, ran a stop sign, crossed the centerline, rear ended someone, got hurt, got killed – you name it). It is up to you to prevent “it” from happening again, from happening to someone else, or from happening to you or someone you love. When you are a juror, you speak for the community.
The State of Minnesota says “It is up to each and every citizen of Minnesota to rise to the occasion and the opportunity to serve as a juror for our state and our community.” North Dakota says that the jury must be selected from “a fair cross section of the community.”
What will YOU do when a lawyer tells you that someone does not need to pay for the damage they caused?
Drivers are supposed to pay attention to the road. Drivers are supposed to watch where they are going. Drivers are not supposed to text while driving. Drivers are supposed to be sober. Those are rules of the road that everyone knows.
When a driver breaks one of those rules and causes medical bills, lost wages, and pain, that driver’s insurance has to pay. The problem comes when the driver or insurance company does not want to pay. That is when you take them to court.
The other lawyer might tell you that his client does not need to pay for the medical bills, lost wages, pain or other harms and losses. If a lawyer tells you that, what will you do? Shake your head NO. No one is too good to be held accountable for their actions. The way justice in America works is the jury decides how much money the driver must pay for the damage he / she caused. (The driver’s insurance company, not the driver, almost always pays what the jury says.)
If you are on a jury, you are there because someone in your community does not want to be held accountable for something they did. The jury represents the community. The jury is the place for community justice. The jury protects the community.
“You caused this damage, so you (your insurance company) has to pay for it.”
You have heard it before: Jury service is an important part of justice, accountability, and the court. It really is true. People go to court when they cannot agree. They are fighting over something, and they want the court to tell them what to do. A personal injury claim – when someone is hurt or killed in an accident, is where the injured person tries to get the negligent driver’s insurance to pay the damages. If they caused the damages, their insurance should pay for it.
In a personal injury lawsuit, people go to court when the insurance company will not pay for damages (medical bills, lost wages, and pain and disability), or because the insurance company made a low-ball offer to settle a case.
At trial, the lawyer for the driver who caused the crash will make the same low-ball offer – something ridiculous like $3,000 of the $8,000 medical bill. It is a mystery why they never tell you to pay the entire medical bill. Could you get away with that? Sometimes people have to go to court to hold the other driver and the insurance company accountable.
Insurance companies make low-ball offers to try and save money, even when it is not fair. Remember, someone else’s insurance claim will NOT make your rates go up! That is an urban myth! Insurance companies pay hundreds of claims every day and your rates do not go up.