Legal Notices

Defendant's Stockholder Cannot Serve as Juror

On January 15, 2010, in Roberts v. CSX (No. 091094), the Supreme Court of Virginia reaffirmed that a venireman who is a stockholder in a party (here, defendant CSX) is per se disqualified for cause.  The plaintiff should not have been required to use a peremptory challenge to remove him, and the circuit court had no discretion to keep him in the pool based on the venireman's assertions on voir dire that he could be fair.  This was an expensive reversal for CSX - it had obtained a jury verdict that an FELA plaintiff was 95% at fault for his injury, meaning that the verdict against CSX was only $14,000 on the jury's finding of $280,000 in total damages.   In making this ruling the Court determined that the issues surrounding the seating of an impartial jury in an FELA case are governed by state law, not federal law.