Judging a Corporation

One of the biggest headlines going into Super Bowl LII wasn’t about Tom Brady’s age or the blown “no-call” in the NFC championship game. In fact, it didn’t involve football at all. It was about fried chicken, Chick-fil-a fried chicken to be exact. Chick-fil-a is very well known for being one of the few national chains to close on Sundays. Even though they almost never waiver from this policy, people assumed an exception would be made since the Super Bowl was in Atlanta, where Chick-fil-a is headquartered, and there are stands in Mercedes Benz Stadium. Chick-fil-a squashed these rumors when the confirmed to Sports Illustrated that they would not be open on Super bowl Sunday. Within 24 hours everyone on the internet was talking about it. But why? And why are we talking about it now in the context of a blog about juries?

The answer to both of these questions is the same. People were interested in the Chick-fil-a story because there is a very strong public bias against corporations in America. This is not a new phenomenon.  “It’s a Wonderful Life” was released in 1947 and one of its main themes is George Bailey against the evil Potter corporation. With that being said, Mr. Potter did not have every slightly unsavory thing he did posted on Twitter or Facebook within days of it happening. Nowadays people don’t even have to seek out the information. They will get a Fox News or New York Times alert telling them a Starbucks employee didn’t let someone use the bathroom or Facebook leaked a certain number of people’s data. We hear so many of these negative stories that when a company does something good it makes national news, as was the case with Chick-fil-a. 

This is an interesting type of bias to look at in the context of juries because its seemingly only going to get worse. Right now, corporate litigants use jury selection to try to get a more sympathetic jury, they try to pick a good corporate representative, they emphasize the company’s story and purpose, etc. etc. but these strategies only go so far. Many states have already passed legislation putting caps on punitive damages and limiting the role of civil juries, but will they have to do more over the coming years? Moreover, will public bias against corporations ever reach such an extreme that it is an impossible bias for a jury to overcome? Only time will tell.