In cases where the evidence regarding health effects is ambiguous, jurors are often more concerned with remediation than compensation. Jurors want evidence that a polluter is working effectively with local, state, and federal agencies to clean up the contamination.

It is often possible to overcome a hindsight bias by educating jurors about the history of facility operations and the evolution of environmental knowledge. Defendant-oriented jurors are often persuaded by arguments that a defendant exceeded industry standards and environmental regulations.

Jurors perceive that local agencies lack expertise to effectively manage environmental problems and that state and federal agencies lack the resources to effectively enforce environmental regulations.

Jurors intuitively look for patterns of health effects among plaintiffs. When a small trial group has been selected from a larger group of plaintiffs, it sometimes becomes more difficult to prove specific causality because jurors believe that if exposure is harmful, then many people should be affected.

The more economically and racially segregated the community, the more allegations of environmental racism will resonate among poor jurors.

Plaintiff-oriented jurors in environmental cases tend to be guided by fear control as they think about their own well-being and the welfare of family members. Defendant-oriented jurors engage in more rational danger control and want to understand the extent of contamination and how exposure can be prevented or limited.

Perhaps more than any other area of litigation, jurors in environmental cases focus on the qualifications, scientific methods, and communication skills of opposing experts. Jurors want to know that an expert has followed accepted practices and procedures in forming scientific conclusions.

The most effective response to a plaintiff’s corporate responsibility or corporate greed theme is a favorable corporate image. Companies with a favorable image tend to receive the benefit of the doubt when jurors are presented with conflicting or ambiguous testimony.

Jurors in environmental cases come to trial with strong predispositions about case issues and those predispositions affect judgments about the case. Jury research can provide case-specific insight into the characteristics of the most favorable and dangerous jurors in your case.

Jurors have a tendency to dramatically overstate the cost of medical monitoring and future medical care. When jurors are asked to deliberate damages related to medical care, they often recall their own experiences and share fears about the rising cost of medical care.