The road to financial ruin starts with … jury duty?

You’d think with the high rate of unemployment that for some laid-off workers, jury duty would be a welcome relief. After all, when you’re working, who has the time for jury duty? Well, it turns out that with the recession, plenty of people cannot afford to serve jury duty.

According to a recent article in the New York Times, getting called for jury duty in today’s climate is even LESS desirable than in normal economic times. In one court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, more than 40 potential jurors (out of a total pool of 80) had to be dismissed because serving would cause extreme financial hardship.

The story is the same across the nation. Some laid-off workers in Idaho allegedly could not afford the gas it would cost to go to the courthouse. Some small business owners have let most employees go and must run their businesses on their own. And others still employed said their companies were no longer providing compensation for jury duty.

Some argue that jurors should be compensated better, but if the economy is suffering, so are government institutions, and the chance that juror compensation will increase is slim.

This was posted on Tuesday, September 8th, 2009 and is filed in the Legal categories.