Not long ago, I was called for jury duty. Although I was busy, I consider jury duty to be part of my civic responsibility and I did not try to avoid it. Well, another reason is that in my state, it is just about impossible to get out of at least appearing for a day of jury selection.

I was interviewed for three potential cases: Two were malpractice cases for which I regret I was excused from serving on faster than you can say, “I object.” The third case involved a lawyer whom I knew personally. That turns out to be an automatic exclusion.

I’ve decided that in order to fulfill my obligation, I am going to volunteer to serve. Here are three cases that have yet to be tried (I would be happy to sit on a jury for any of them):

Case 1. An 83-year-old woman is suing for $1 million because she walked into a glass door at an Apple store and broke her nose. You read it correctly. She’s 83 and thinks her nose is worth $1 million. [See article]

Case 2. A woman is suing McDonald’s and one of its franchisees because she says the company forced her into prostitution. She blames low wages and the fact that the franchise owner, now her ex-husband, coerced her into becoming a prostitute at the Chicken Ranch in Nevada. She says McDonald’s didn’t have a proper grievance policy and “failed to conduct a due diligence into the moral character of [the franchisee] when it sold franchises to him.” By the way, this all occurred in the 1980s. [See article]

Case 3. A 28-year-old prison inmate is suing the hospital in which he was born for circumcising him. According to the article about this, he just found out he was circumcised and says that the procedure “robbed him of his sexual prowess.” In addition to monetary damages to the tune of $1,000, he is asking that his foreskin be replaced. [See article]

I am hoping to be picked for the third case as it involves surgery.

Are there any cases for which you would like to be among the jurors?

Skeptical Scalpel is a recently retired surgeon and was a surgical department chairman and residency program director for many years. He is board-certified in general surgery and a surgical sub-specialty and has re-certified in both several times. For the last two years, he has been blogging at SkepticalScalpel.blogspot.com and tweeting as @SkepticScalpel. His blog averages 800 page views per day, and he has over 4,600 followers on Twitter.

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