(Aug. 20) – What is on a juror’s mind is often cryptic during trial, so it’s a natural reaction for the lawyers involved to make a mad dash to members of the jury once the verdict is out and they are excused from duty.
It was no exception moments after Friday’s $242 million verdict in Dallas District Judge Dale Tillery’s courtroom. The jury found Toyota predominately liable for traumatic brain injury sustained by the two small children of Benjamin and Kristi Reavis in a 2016 rear-end accident involving the family’s Lexus.
Shortly after lawyers for the Reavis family hugged their clients and Toyota lawyers shook hands with their courtroom opponents, both sets of lawyers headed to the hallway to ask jurors about the key contributors to their verdict.
The Texas Lawbook spoke with two of the jurors.
Asked what kind of message the jury had hoped to send with their verdict, one juror referred to a theme that had emerged during expert testimony from both sides: the front seats in the Reavis’ Lexus were designed to protect front seat passengers from injury; they weren’t designed to protect those sitting behind. The juror, a plumbing designer for a mechanical electrical and plumbing firm that designs office buildings, asked not to be fully identified.
“The whole thought of taking any sort of bias toward one passenger over another just doesn’t sit right with me,” said the juror, “S.Y.” “So, I would hope that the world just understands that we care for every passenger within a vehicle, whether that’s in the front row, in the front seats, or in the third row in the back seats.”
“It doesn’t matter who they are, where they’re sitting, what age they are,” said the juror. “Everyone is important in those seats, so everybody needs to be protected. And if testing needs to be shown that a seat or a cabin of a vehicle can accommodate safety for everyone, then that needs to be implemented. There are no exceptions. It needs to be done.
Asked what caused them to rule as they had, the juror said he was swayed by the “lack of foundation that is behind Toyota” and the company’s lack of information on the testing of the Lexus ES300 “prior to distributing it and manufacturing it.”
Another juror, who also asked to be identified only as “Mike F.”, said believability of Reavises’ experts compared to Toyota’s experts was also a contributing factor.
“It was our job to figure out who to believe, and when it came down to it, we believed one side more than the other side.”
The jurors also cited Reavis family friends, Heather Lepeska and Hillary Campbell, as credible witnesses who provided “a good view of what the kids were like before.”
They said they also found the crash testing conducted by the plaintiffs’ rebuttal witness, Steve Meyer, to align with his testimony, which provided more credibility for the Reavises’ legal arguments.
On the defense side, they found Toyota’s forensic economist expert, David Weiner, helpful, finding him “very neutral” in terms of what amount would reasonably compensate the Reavises and found his testimony “data-driven.”
“I would probably trust him with my money,” Mike F. said.
Juror S.Y. said he also found the testing of Toyota’s reconstruction expert, James Edward Walker “very informative of what he believed to happen, and made it easier for us to have a consensus on the actual circumstances within the crash. The visual representations that Mr. Walker brought was very helpful.”
Asked which witnesses they found less credible, Mike F. said it was hands down Toyota’s last witness, seat design engineer Greg Stephens.
“If they said Toyota built a spaceship, he probably would have vouched for that,” he said. “A Toyota fanboy is what he seemed like; I didn’t believe anything he said.”
Juror S.Y. said Toyota experts Will Van Arsdell, Dr. Lisa Gwin and Michael James did not come across as convincing “because they went off of probability.
“They didn’t actually go off of facts or knowledge of the accident that was either provided by the reconstructionists or the plaintiffs in this case,” he said.
Asked who their favorite lawyer was, both reached a quick consensus: the Branson firm’s Chip Brooker.
“He had a pretty fancy hair flip,” S.Y. said. “His questioning style was very direct, he was not beating around the bush.
“I wasn’t sure if I’d rather have a root canal or get cross-examined by Mr. Brooker,” Mike F. said. “He was very prepared.”