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A Proxy for a Judge's Own View of the Sufficiency of the Evidence?
Under motions for summary judgment, directed verdict, and judgment as a matter of law, judges employ the reasonable jury standard', deciding whether a reasonable jury could find for the nonmoving party. This article explores the propriety of the reasonable jury standard, argues the standard has become a proxy for a judge's own view of the evidence, and proposes renewed study of the standard.
Judges use the reasonable jury standard to decide motions for summary judgment, the directed verdict, and judgment as a matter of law.1 Under this standard, a judge dismisses a case if he decides that no reasonable jury could find for the nonmoving party. The reasonable jury standard is thus extremely important to civil litigation because litigants' cases rest on this standard. A prominent example of a case using this standard is the Supreme Court's decision in Scott v. Harris. There, using the reasonable jury standard, the Supreme Court dismissed a case in which the plaintiff alleged the police had used excessive force during a car chase. Upon viewing a videotape of the car chase, the Court, eight to one, decided that no reasonable jury could find for the plaintiff. Previously, however, four lower court judges had propounded a different view of the evidence and decided that a reasonable jury could find for the plaintiff. The Scott case and the possibility that people can think differently about evidence have been the subject of important commentary. For example, Professor Dan Kahan and his co-authors surveyed approximately 1,350 people to study their views of the police's actions in Scott.2 Based on their backgrounds, people differed on whether they thought the police acted properly. The conflicting views of judges on what a reasonable jury could find in Scott, as well as the different perspectives of survey participants, illustrate potential problems with the use of the reasonable jury standard to dismiss cases.
Here, I explore these problems and the propriety of the reasonable jury standard. 1 first describe the origins of the reasonable jury standard and then set forth the Supreme Court's interpretation of that standard. Next, 1 describe the different opinions of the judges in Scott and evaluate the use of...