Jury Verdicts Database for Cook County, Illinois, and All Counties in California, 1960-1984

This data collection contains information on jury verdict civil cases in Cook County, Illinois, and all counties in California. The RAND Corporation's Institute for Criminal Justice began this study in the early 1980s in response to widespread public interest in the magnitude of dollar verdicts returned in civil cases. The goal was to record salient information found in court reporter publications to allow for a wide range of future research. Two such publications were chosen because of their favorable reputations and because they both dated back to 1960: the "Cook County Jury Verdict Reporter" of Chicago, Illinois, and "Jury Verdicts Weekly" of Santa Rosa, California. The collection of data for this study was conducted in two phases. Phase I included cases from 1960-1979, and Phase II coded cases from 1980-1984, including a small number of cases from 1985. In both phases, only cases in which a jury reached a definitive outcome (including deadlocked or hung juries) were included. In Phase I, only San Francisco County cases from the California reporter publication were included. In Phase II, all California counties were included. For all cases in Phase I, a Main Form was completed that included jurisdiction, court type, dates of incidents and trial, information about parties involved, trial occurrences, outcome of trial, awards, and fees. In addition to this Main Form, at least one of nine different case-type forms was completed: Common Carrier-Passenger Form, Dram Shop Form, Injuries on Property/Attractive Nuisance Form, Malpractice Form, Miscellaneous Form, Products Liability Form, Street Hazards/Highway Construction Form, Traffic/Pedestrian/Rider Form, and Work Injuries and FELA Form. These forms contained questions regarding the behavior of each party in the case and other characteristics and facts relevant to the case. A Jury Verdicts Form was completed for all cases in Phase II. This form picked up general case-level and defendant-specific data such as dates and length of trial, case outcome, original number of parties involved, and collapsing of multiple defendants into one case. For each plaintiff, a Plaintiff Information Form was filled out containing general plaintiff information such as losses claimed and the coder's assessment of the degree of the plaintiff's comparative negligence. This form also indicated which of the loss forms was coded for this plaintiff (only one loss form was completed for each plaintiff): Death Action, Personal Injuries, or Money Damages. Each form contained basic information about the outcome of the case, specific damages claimed by the plaintiff, and loss-specific data. Additionally, an Ancillary Action Form was completed for any associated claims that were adjudicated at the time of the main case, such as counter-suits by defendants. The questions on this form were the same as those on the main Jury Verdicts Form. Finally, this study includes an Integrated Jury Verdicts Database (Part 33) containing data from both phases to permit easier analysis of data from all years. This database contains five sections: (1) the basic trial information, which includes the trial dates and lengths, reporter source, and jurisdiction, (2) the main case information, which includes more detailed data about the case such as number of parties involved, case type, types of losses claimed, and total compensatory and punitive awards, (3) information about the first ancillary action, (4) information about the second ancillary action, and (5) a listing of all the forms used.

本数据集收录了伊利诺伊州库克县及加利福尼亚州所有地区的陪审团民事案件判决信息。RAND犯罪司法研究所于20世纪80年代初启动此项研究，旨在回应公众对民事案件中返还金额判决规模的广泛关注。研究目标是为法院速记员出版物中发现的显著信息建立记录，以支持未来广泛的研究。鉴于两份出版物享有良好声誉且均追溯至1960年，故选定了这两份出版物：伊利诺伊州芝加哥的《库克县陪审团判决报告》和加利福尼亚州圣罗莎的《陪审团判决周报》。该研究的数据收集分为两个阶段：第一阶段包含1960年至1979年的案件，第二阶段则编码了1980年至1984年的案件，包括少量1985年的案件。在两个阶段中，仅包括陪审团达成最终判决（包括僵持或无法达成一致）的案件。在第一阶段，仅包括加利福尼亚州报告出版物中的旧金山县案件。在第二阶段，包括加利福尼亚州所有县份的案件。对于第一阶段的所有案件，均完成了一份主表，其中包含管辖权、法院类型、事件和审判日期、涉案方信息、审判事件、审判结果、赔偿和费用等信息。除此之外，还至少完成了一份九种不同类型的案件表格之一：普通承运人-乘客表格、酒吧责任表格、财产/诱因伤害表格、疏忽大意的医疗表格、杂项表格、产品责任表格、街道危险/公路建设表格、交通/行人/骑手表格和工作伤害及FELA表格。这些表格包含有关案件各方行为以及其他与案件相关的特征和事实的问题。第二阶段的所有案件均完成了一份陪审团判决表格，该表格收集了案件层级和被告特定数据，如审判日期和持续时间、案件结果、原始涉案方数量以及多个被告合并为一个案件的情况。对于每位原告，填写了一份原告信息表格，其中包含原告的一般信息，如声称的损失和编码者对原告比较过失程度的评估。此表格还指出了为该原告编码的损失表格（每位原告仅完成一份损失表格）：死亡诉讼、人身伤害或金钱损害。每个表格都包含关于案件结果、原告所声称的具体损害赔偿以及损失特定数据的基本信息。此外，还完成了一份附带诉讼表格，用于处理在主要案件审判时解决的任何相关索赔，如被告的反诉。该表格上的问题与主陪审团判决表格上的问题相同。最后，本研究还包括了一个综合陪审团判决数据库（第33部分），包含两个阶段的数据，以便更容易分析所有年份的数据。该数据库包含五个部分：（1）基本审判信息，包括审判日期和持续时间、报告来源和管辖权；（2）主要案件信息，包括关于案件更详细的数据，如涉案方数量、案件类型、声称的损失类型以及总补偿和惩罚性赔偿；（3）关于第一项附带诉讼的信息；（4）关于第二项附带诉讼的信息；（5）所有使用的表格列表。