Memphis Injury Lawyer Blog

Cluck Kent was a mild mannered reporter for a great Memphis metropolitan newspaper. His former fiancé, Lipsy Lane, was interested in serving him with papers to establish Tennessee child support for their bouncing baby boy, Kal-el. After months of trying to serve the “Man of Steel”, Lane saw her golden opportunity to have the Shelby County lawsuit handed to her former lover. Lane discovered that her “Man” had been called for jury duty in Memphis and Lipsy intended to get her “Man”. The very next day, while Cluck was sitting in the jury box in Shelby County Circuit Court, the dreaded process server put the papers into Cluck’s hands. He was just summoned to a paternity hearing in Shelby County Juvenile Court the very next week.

As an observer of the human condition and a trial lawyer who handles these kinds of cases, I wonder: Is it fair for the “Man of Steel” to be served papers while discharging his public duty of jury service? Suppose he had been served while leaving the parking lot to enter the Shelby County Courthouse?

Effective January 1, 2009, some rather sweeping changes to the selection and exemption of prospective jurors from jury service shall go into effect. In our example above, Kent would have legal grounds to challenge the service of process under Tennessee code Annotated 22-1-106:

Service of process on any juror while that juror is attending or traveling to or from the court to which the juror is summoned is voidable and subject to challenge.

But this is not the only change. Formerly, a citizen could try and
avoid jury service due to his or her age, job (doctor, lawyer, etc.), and several other factors. As of January 1, however, the Court overseeing the selection and empaneling juries shall only excuse a person if:

The prospective juror has a mental or physical condition that causes that person to be incapable of performing jury service.

The person's service will constitute an undue or extreme physical or financial hardship to the prospective juror or a person under the prospective juror's care or supervision.

The legislature defined undue hardship as any of the following:

The prospective juror would be required to abandon a person under the juror's personal care or supervision due to the impossibility of obtaining an appropriate substitute caregiver during the period of participation in the jury pool or on the jury;

The prospective juror would incur costs that would have a substantial adverse impact on the payment of the juror's necessary daily living expenses or on those for whom the juror provides the principle means of support;

The prospective juror would suffer physical hardship that would result in illness or disease; or

The prospective juror would be deprived of compensation due to the fact that the prospective juror works out-of-state and the out-of-state employer is unwilling to compensate the juror or that the prospective juror is employed by an employer who is not required to compensate jurors and declines to do so voluntarily.

I have argued many cases to both civil and criminal juries. In my opinion, the willingness to serve on such a jury is the foundation of our justice system. I fully understand the inconvenience and financial impact of performing this duty. However, with the possible exception of voting, there is no duty more important than being the sole judge of the facts in a case. That is correct. In either kind of trial only the jury can decide the truth of what happened. This function is far too important to measure in words or dollars. By serving as a juror, one can affect not only the system but the lives of the parties to the case, as well. Stand and Be Counted.