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The Twain Effect

Mark Twain wrote in 1872, "We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read."

Yesterday, an Oregon jury announced a $300 million verdict against Payless Shoes in a trademark/tradedress infringement case brought by Adidas. [Hat tip: Bashman]. Looking through the verdict form, I found the following idiosyncrasy.

After finding Payless liable, beginning on Page 3, the jurors are ask to find which of shoes (by lots) infringed TM/TD or constituted unfair practice. The list of shoes is long, so the verdict form provides the following:

As a shortcut, if you found for adidas on each lot and will be checking "Yes" for each lot number, you may check "Yes" on the next question and skip the chart entirely.

[unchecked] Yes - we found for adidas on each lot and would check "Yes" for each lot on the chart. Please proceed to Section III of this form.

[checked] No = we found for adidas on at least one lot but not all lots. Please complete the entire chart and then proceed to Section III of this form.

Guess what the jury did? Checked no, then checked yes for EVERY SINGLE lot.

UPDATE: And I feel the fool. On page 9, the jury did indeed check no for one of the shoes. Yay for the American jury system.

Full post as published by Nuts & Boalts on May 07, 2008 (boomark / email).