I have had State Farm adjusters sitting in the venire eager to get on an auto accident jury. In one case, I remember a State Farm adjuster on the venire panel. I used internal State Farm documents with the Judge showing that the insurance carrier encouraged their employees – when called for jury duty – to maneuver their selection onto a jury to make mischief. The judge would not strike the juror for cause, and we were forced to use a peremptory challenge. These are always difficult decisions.
Here is a Florida appellate court decision that may help with that.
During jury selection, Okaloosa County Circuit Court Judge William F. Stone refused to excuse for cause one of the jurors who Seadler flagged as biased. This meant Seadler was forced to use one of his three peremptory challenges to toss the problematic juror, the justices’ opinion said. Seadler was ultimately forced to accept a different juror he didn’t want and would have removed if he only had that challenge, the opinion said.
Read more at: https://www.law360.com/personal-injury-medical-malpractice/articles/1779945?nl_pk=029cff45-637f-44e3-babf-75563f8e0bfd&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=personal-injury-medical-malpractice&utm_content=2023-12-22&read_main=1&nlsidx=0&nlaidx=5?copied=1
