On 28 March 2015 at 1:02 PM... “Okay so now that my civic duty is complete and am no longer under a judicial order to avoid anything up, down, around, or to do with the case I served on, I can put all the details down in writing: Without over-complicating things, simply, one party made a loan (of an exorbitant $250,000) to someone to help out with their businesses & the borrower was trying REALLY hard to weasel out of paying the money back. All of the jurors believed that that was the down and dirty of the story. When you take out all of the overstating that BOTH sides did, it was fairly simple: A contract was made (oh yes folks this was in black & white) and the borrower not only INSISTED on paying interest when it was declined, but gave the lender not only one, but THREE Promissory Notes guaranteeing to pay them back! Oh & did I fail to mention that the borrower is a LAWYER?! So the lender had an innate sense of trust in this person, if not financially, at least legally. Anyway, first, we decided the first two out of the three notes were legally binding. Now each note was signed by this attorney, but as CEO of two separate businesses, that threw a small wrench in the works. Collectively, the jury decided to make the first business pay the interest that accumulated from the beginning of the loan until the second note was drafted, which amounted to a little over $7,800. The second businesses was held accountable for the original loan amount ($250,000.00) plus the accumulated interest (that was a different rate then the original) and we calculated the total to be around $275,000. To ensure that the lender didn't have to incur any court costs or fees and received some money's for her trouble, (this had gone on for over two years!) we rounded the sum up to an even $300,000.00 and called it fair. At the end of the day that came to a grand total of a little over $307,800.00 after both business entities pay up. I just hope the borrower stops screwing around and just pays the lender back already. It didn't take any time for us to determine that we all believed money was borrowed, payment was promised, & moneys were owed, it was just a matter of how much. After all the calculating, estimating, & rounding we were unanimous in the end, as ordered of course. What took the most of our time after going over the evidence (mainly the IOUs) was figuring out all of those calculations & interest...ugh! I volunteered to be the Jury Forewoman but when the calculators came out I gladly handed that responsibility over to the others! The judge had warned us that this case was going to be a few days so, after the first day of trial, I baked a cake and brought it the next day in order to, not only have something positive to look forward to, but also to have sugar so our brains continued to function. There were 6 women with 1 guy on the panel making a total of 7 of us. Everyone was patient and respectful as well as took our role seriously but everyone had a general air of levity about them. (I guess one could say, I think we all took our purpose VERY seriously but not ourselves in-as-much.) It was a pleasant experience all in all, minus the testimony lasting 2½ days and only getting $30.00/day for expenses (which is going right into my gas tank!) 😊 I am proud of my service though and certainly will not lose a wink of sleep over mine and the jury-as-a-whole's decision & verdict in the case.” Entry captured with Momento App http://momentoapp.com