Kentucky Supreme Court Reinstates Defense Verdict in Medical Malpractice Wrongful Death Trial
A few months ago we wrote about an Indiana Supreme Court decision granting a plaintiff a new trial as a result of a trial court’s refusal to strike a biased juror for cause which caused the plaintiff to lose a peremptory strike of another juror.
In Floyd v. Neal, the Kentucky Supreme Court reversed the Kentucky Court of Appeals decision to give an alleged medical malpractice wrongful death victim’s spouse and her late husband’s estate a new trial under similar circumstances albeit with a twist of facts.
The Kentucky Court of Appeals had concluded that a juror was biased and should have been struck for cause and that the plaintiff should have thus been able to use a peremptory strike on another prospective juror who was ultimately empaneled. In other words, a peremptory strike was utilized unnecessarily, depriving the plaintiff of utilizing it later. The Supreme Court, over a lone dissent, concluded that the plaintiff failed to preserve the error, even though the error apparently would have been preserved under the language of then-existing precedent. The dissent took issue with the Court’s retroactive application of a clarified striking procedure and the constitutionality of allowing a juror with an admitted bias to sit on the jury. Of significance to the Supreme Court’s decision was that in identifying the peremptory strikes she would have used, the plaintiff identified not one, but two jurors, when she only had one peremptory strike remaining.