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Williams v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore11/3/1993
ury, the fourth of which parallels the questions posed here: "Have any of you read any articles or advertising in periodical publications which tend to indicate a relationship between the amounts of personal injury verdicts and increases in insurance premiums?" Id. at 492-93. The Court of Appeals held that voir dire is within the discretion of the trial court, and that it was not an abuse of that discretion to refuse to ask the questions sought by the plaintiffs there, particularly in light of the fact that the questions would bring into a personal injury trial the issue of insurance coverage. Similar principles have been applied in Cardin v. State, 73 Md. App. 200, 533 A.2d 928 (1987), cert. denied, 312 Md. 126, 538 A.2d 777, cert. denied, 488 U.S. 827, 102 L. Ed. 2d 55, 109 S. Ct. 78, reh'g denied, 488 U.S. 935 (1988), and Williams v. State, 77 Md. App. 411, 550 A.2d 722 (1988), aff'd, 316 Md. 677, 561 A.2d 216 (1989).
The other Maryland cases relied on by appellants are distinguishable. In Morris v. Weddington, 320 Md. 674, 579 A.2d 762 (1990), the Court was concerned with the validity of a jury verdict that appeared to have been affected by jurors' concerns about insurance coverage. That case has nothing to do with the discretion of a court in asking or not asking voir dire questions. Wilson v. Morris, 317 Md. 284, 563 A.2d 392 (1989), involved evidence of bias warranting voir dire of a juror after the jury had been empaneled. In Wilson, the plaintiff actually overheard one of the jurors discussing his bias in a hallway before the jury was empaneled but did not report the matter to the court until after opening arguments. The Court held that the trial court erred by not conducting further voir dire of that juror, even though trial had already begun. The key difference is that that case involved actual evidence of juror bias, clearly justifying further investigation of attitudes and ability to be impartial. There was no such evidence here.
A few of our sister States have taken a more liberal approach and allowed questions such as those requested here, at least where (1) a proper foundation has been laid, and (2) the questions relate specifically to an identified advertising campaign conducted by the insurance industry.
In Borkoski v. Yost, 182 Mont. 28, 594 P.2d 688 (Mont. 1979), the plaintiffs in a medical malpractice action offered pre-trial evidence of a national advertising campaign by certain insurance companies, including the one insuring the defendants. The gist of the advertisements was that large jury awards result in higher insurance premiums and that, when awarding damages in liability cases, a jury should be cautioned that "money does not grow on trees" and that awards "must be paid through insurance premiums from uninvolved parties, such as yourselves." The advertisements described certain "windfall" jury verdicts and urged juries to help clean up the "mess." Id. at 689. The plaintiff sought, on voir dire, to determine whether any of the jurors had been exposed to, or were aware of, this campaign "directed particularly at prospective jurors" and complained on appeal of the denial of its request."
The Montana Supreme Court first noted, at 690, that, in Montana, the purpose of voir dire is to enable counsel to determine the existence of bias and prejudice "and to enable counsel to exercise intelligently his peremptory challenges." In Maryland, of course, voir dire is directed solely to discovering a basis for challenging jurors for cause and not to ass
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