In Alcazar v. Los Angeles Unified School Dist., ordered published November 15, 2018, the Second District Court of Appeal, Division 1 affirmed judgment for the defendant school district after a jury trial. The plaintiff was a middle-school student with learning disabilities who fell and was injured after swinging on a tree branch that broke. The plaintiff alleged the school failed to properly supervise him. During voir dire, the trial court initially allowed the parties to give mini opening statements. During questioning of the first panel, some jurors expressed pre-judgment of the case based on the details given during the mini-openings. The court then ordered that for subsequent panels the parties could not give mini-openings; instead, the court would read the statement of the case to which the parties had agreed. The plaintiff's counsel was permitted to give several details of the case in his questioning of jurors. Two jurors expressed uncertainty on whether they could be fair, but ultimately said they could. The court declined the plaintiff's challenge to the jurors for cause. The jury entered a defense verdict. The plaintiff alleged that the court had exceeded its discretion under Code of Civil Procedure section 222.5 in limiting the use of mini-openings; and that the court abused its discretion in denying the challenges for cause.
The appellate court affirmed the trial court's exercise of its discretion. Section 222.5, as it existed at the time of the trial, preserved the trial court's discretion to disallow mini-openings depending on the circumstances. The circumstances here included jurors stating they had prejudged the case based on the mini-openings given. The court has discretion to deny a challenge for cause, unless the juror expresses views indicative of an unalterable preference in favor of one side. Since both jurors here stated they could keep an open mind, the court had discretion to deny the challenge.
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