> That's incredulous to me, that there would be an actual lawsuit of wrongful/unfair dismissal would AND go so far as to have a jury involved.
It's pretty rare here too, and not just for wrongful termination cases. Most civil cases don't make it to trial but are settled. Sometimes it's because one party (in this case, the employer) doesn't want to take it to trial, but sometimes it's because both parties don't want to go there. Trials are very expensive, and it might be cheaper for both sides to settle rather than to bear that expense.
I did a stretch of jury duty a while back. Here (Kentucky) the courts alternate month by month. One month is all civil cases, the next is all criminal, then it's back to civil again. We were given a calendar of possible trial dates and a phone number with a recorded message we could call the evening before to find out if a jury would be needed the next day. On almost every date during the civil trial month, a jury was not needed because the case had already been settled.
On the other hand, during the criminal month the jury panel had to assemble nearly every time. But there was very rarely a trial. When a defendant sees 70 fellow citizens, a judge, lawyers, a bailiff, etc, all ready to try his ass, the prosecutor's plea bargain he sneered at the night before suddenly starts looking good. So usually we'd assemble in the courtroom, there would be a few minutes of conversation at the bench, the judge would announce that "something's come up and we need to trash out some legal stuff in my chambers," they'd go off for an hour, then the judge would return and announce there wouldn't be a trial that day.
reply
share