Precious little guidance - Jury instruction on damage awards

Jury instructions on damage awards are notoriously vague and ambiguous. As a result, awards are sometimes unexpected and seemingly illogical. In this article, the authors argue that jury instructions regarding damages are vag ue because the law of damages itself is purposefully ambiguous-allowing par ticularized justice across a variety of different circumstances. The author s review research on comprehension and application of substantive jury inst ructions related to damages and on procedural variations at trial (e.g., us e of preinstruction, bifurcation, blindfolding jurors to various issues, sp ecial verdict forms, caps on damages, and instruction revision) that impact the substantive instructions that jurors receive from the judge. They comm ent on attempts at reforming jury instructions regarding damages and conclu de that jurors' decision making on this difficult and emotional issue could be made more predictable by careful reforms at the trial level.