Tired and Deadlocked: What Jones v. Cleveland Clinic Teaches About Ohio Jury Trials

Published August 4, 2020 · Ohio Supreme Court

Picture a jury room at 9:30 on a Friday night. Eight people have been deliberating since late morning. They are split down the middle on whether a cardiologist should have ordered one more test for a man who died of a heart attack two weeks later. They send the judge a note saying they are "tired, cranky," and ask whether they can go home.

Half an hour later, after being told they would have to come back Monday, they returned a verdict for the defense. A month after that, one juror wrote the judge a letter saying she had changed her vote to avoid coming back. On July 23, the Supreme Court of Ohio decided that the letter could not undo the verdict. The case is Jones v. Cleveland Clinic Found., Slip Opinion No. 2020-Ohio-3780, and it is worth understanding for anyone whose injury or wrongful-death case may end up in front of a jury.

What happened in the courtroom

ReDon Jones went to a Cleveland Clinic hospital with chest pain. A cardiologist ordered a treadmill stress test and read it as negative. A week after the test, Mr. Jones died of a heart attack. His widow, as administrator of his estate, filed a wrongful-death and medical-malpractice suit claiming the cardiologist should have ordered a cardiac catheterization, which would have found the blocked artery.

The trial took a week. Deliberations began Friday at about 11 a.m. By 5 p.m. the jury reported a 4-4 split. Around 7:20 p.m., a juror had to leave for a family emergency, an alternate was seated, and the jury was told to restart deliberations from scratch. By 9:30 p.m. the jurors were still deadlocked and asked to go home. The judge, with the lawyers' agreement, told them they could leave and return Monday morning. Some jurors reportedly responded that coming back would not change anything.

At about 10 p.m., while the judge and lawyers were discussing whether to give the jury an additional instruction on deadlocks, the jury announced a 6-2 verdict for the defense. Six of eight jurors is enough for a civil verdict in Ohio. Each juror in the majority confirmed the vote when polled.

The juror's letter

A month later, a juror wrote to the court. As quoted in the Supreme Court's opinion, she had "felt very strongly that the plaintiff was correct in the case and the defendant was negligent," but she and another juror changed their votes to speed things along. The court of appeals held that the letter could be considered and that the family deserved a new trial.

The Supreme Court disagreed and reversed. Its reasoning turned on Evid.R. 606(B), a rule of evidence that bars jurors from testifying about what went on in deliberations or about what influenced their votes. The rule has narrow exceptions for outside influences, threats, bribes, and misconduct by court officers. The Court held that a juror's after-the-fact letter is "evidence of any statement by the juror" that the rule excludes, the same as live testimony would be. It explained that the rule exists to protect the privacy of deliberations and the finality of verdicts.

The Court also held the trial judge did not have to give the deadlock instruction (called a Howard charge, after the case that created it) any sooner than he planned to, and found no misconduct or irregularity that required a new trial. It sent the case back to the court of appeals to decide other issues the family had raised.

The concurrence that every trial judge should read

Justice Melody Stewart agreed with the result but wrote separately about how the jury had been treated. She noted that the jurors deliberated for nearly 11 hours on the last day, after already sitting through closing arguments that morning, and that they could not be expected to do their best work in that condition. She also pointed to a promise the judge made during jury selection that the case would be in the jury's hands by Friday, which jurors could easily have understood to mean they would be done by Friday.

Her conclusion is blunt: regardless of which side wins, "the confidence in a jury verdict rendered under circumstances like these is tenuous at best." She called on Ohio courts to do better by the citizens who serve.

Why this matters to injured people and families

This is a hard decision for the Jones family, and I will not pretend otherwise. A juror said in writing that her vote did not reflect what she believed, and the verdict stands. Here is what I take from it.

Post-verdict relief is extremely limited. Ohio courts will not reopen a verdict based on what jurors say about their own deliberations. Whatever protection a family has against a rushed or pressured verdict has to happen before the verdict is read, not after.

Jury management is part of trial work. A trial lawyer can ask the judge to send a tired jury home for the night rather than let deliberations stretch toward midnight. A lawyer can ask for a deadlock instruction when a jury reports it is stuck, and can raise concerns on the record while the jury is still deliberating. These decisions are made in real time, often late at night, and they require a lawyer who has been in that position before and is thinking about the jurors as people.

Preparation shapes the deliberation. Jurors who have been given a clear, well-organized case are less likely to end up hopelessly split. In a medical case, that means experts who explain the standard of care in plain English and a timeline the jury can follow without notes.

Settlement is often the better path. Every trial carries risk, and Jones is a reminder that some of that risk is beyond anyone's control once the jury door closes. Most cases resolve at mediation or before trial. Being ready for trial is what makes a fair settlement possible, and our guide chapter on deadlines and the timeline of an Ohio injury case explains where trial fits in a typical case.

What this means for you

• A juror's later regret, or a letter describing deliberations, generally cannot be used to overturn a verdict in Ohio.
• Problems with how a jury is being handled must be raised during trial, before the verdict.
• A trial lawyer's judgment about jury fatigue, deadlock instructions, and timing can matter as much as the evidence.
• In a serious wrongful-death or malpractice case, choose a lawyer who prepares every case as if it will be tried.