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Guoth v. Hamilton5/25/2005
stion: "You are not prejudging [Dr. Guoth] to have done anything wrong?" She stated, "No, sir." When asked if she had heard anything bad about two of plaintiff's other physician witnesses, she answered that she had heard bad things about both. Dr. Guoth moved that she be struck for cause, which the trial court denied. Dr. Guoth exercised a peremptory challenge to dismiss this juror from the case.
1. The trial court erred. In our 2001 seminal case of Walls v. Kim, we emphasized:
In too many cases, trial courts confronted with clearly biased and partial jurors use their significant discretion to "rehabilitate" these jurors by asking a version of this loaded question: After you hear the evidence and my charge on the law, and considering the oath you take as jurors, can you set aside your preconceptions and decide this case solely on the evidence and the law? Not so remarkably, jurors confronted with this question from the bench almost inevitably say, "yes." Such biased jurors likely even believe that they can set aside their preconceptions and inclinations -- certainly every reasonable person wants to believe he or she is capable of doing so. Once jurors affirmatively answer the "rehabilitation" question, judges usually decide to retain these purportedly rehabilitated jurors, and on appeal such decisions are often found not to be abuses of discretion.
We decried this practice, referring to the "rehabilitation" question as becoming something of a talisman relied upon by trial and appellate judges to justify retaining biased jurors. Id. We admonished trial judges to "err on the side of caution by dismissing, rather than trying to rehabilitate, biased jurors." Id. at 260.
Abiding by this principle, we reversed the judgment in Walls v. Kim where the potential juror stated she knew the defendant doctor because she had worked in the emergency room of a hospital with him. Because of that relationship, she said that she "probably hoped that the case would come out in favor of [the doctor], and she acknowledged that [the plaintiff] did not start the case on an even footing with the doctor." Id. Despite her later statement that she could decide the case on the law and facts (followed by her repeated admission that the parties did not start on equal footing), we held that the trial court abused its discretion in refusing to dismiss her for cause. Id. at 261.
The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed this decision in Kim v. Walls, quoting the following language from Cambron v. State: Running through the entire fabric of our Georgia decisions is a thread which plainly indicates that the broad general principle intended to be applied in every case is that each juror shall be so free from either prejudice or bias as to guarantee the inviolability of an impartial trial. If error is to be committed, let it be in favor of the absolute impartiality and purity of the jurors.
(Punctuation omitted.) Kim v. Walls, supra at 178. See Kier v. State. The Supreme Court held that where "a prospective juror has a relationship with a party to the case that is either close or subordinate, or one that suggests bias, the trial court must do more than `rehabilitate' the juror through the use of any talismanic question." Kim v. Walls supra at 178. Concluding that the voir dire questioning in that case was improperly curtailed by the trial court, the Court affirmed our decision to reverse the trial court. Id. at 179. The Court disapproved Walls v. Kim to the extent it could be read to establish a per se rule requiring the exclusion of all jurors having an employment relationship with a party to the lawsuit. Id.
In 2004, Remillard v. Longstreet Clinic, P. C. reiterated: Juro
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