Orange County jury returned a defense verdict in favor of Murchison & Cumming client

Much to Lisa Angelo‘s surprise, upon the reopening of the courts during COVID-19, the parties in her case were ordered to appear for trial and jury selection. In this real estate fraud case, the plaintiff sued her former best friend of 34 years, for intentional misrepresentation, negligent misrepresentation, constructive fraud, and breach of fiduciary duty. The defendant vehemently denied each and every allegation set forth by the plaintiff.

Due to “social distancing,” they could only voir dire 18 jurors at a time. The court’s clerk placed red tape on every fifth seat in the jury box and throughout the gallery so jurors would know where to sit and would remain at least six feet apart from each other at all times. More shocking, neither the plaintiff nor the defendant could sit in the courtroom and observe jury selection and voir dire because only a certain number of people could be together in the courtroom at all times. In other words, the seats that clients would have normally occupied instead had to go to a prospective juror during voir dire to accommodate 18 jurors in the room along with counsel, the judge, and courtroom staff. In order to make the courtroom “open to the public,” which it most certainly was not, the daily court sessions were “live streamed” on the court’s website for free.

The only jurors who consistently got to see the front-side of the trial attorneys were the three jurors who were lucky enough to get a seat inside the jury box. Instead of focusing on whether a juror’s smile meant something, whether good or bad, all Lisa could focus on was the evidence that she planned to get admitted each day, the testimony she planned to elicit, and how she could get her message across without knowing whether people liked it or not.

A fully masked Orange County jury returned a defense verdict in favor of Murchison & Cumming Partner Lisa D. Angelo’s client.