Trial Methods set out to take the pulse of the public by collecting data online from 223 jury-eligible people from 15 counties across the country. These counties were selected because they represent a range of geographically, demographically and politically diverse subsets of the population. This annual survey has been conducted since 2017.
Direction of the Country; Economic Outlook
55% of respondents are pessimistic about the future of the country while 45% are optimistic. This represents a 6% change in economic outlook as one year ago, 51% were optimistic with 49% pessimistic.
38% said the current economy is personally causing them a lot of stress, up 10 percentage points from both the 2024 and 2025 survey.
23% indicate it is very difficult to make ends meet given the current economy, up slightly from 2025 which was also up slightly from the preceding year.
Lawsuits Against Corporations
26% strongly agree with the idea of awarding punitive damages.
79% agree that the more serious the injury of someone suing the more the jury should send a message. This is up from 71% a year ago.
When asked about allegations of corporate misconduct, 68% said they would be more likely to believe the company did something wrong, while 32% took this to mean someone is trying to get some easy money. This has been a fairly consistent breakdown in recent years.
74% of respondents believe individuals who file lawsuits are trying to place responsibility where it belongs, while 26% feel people suing are refusing to take responsibility for their actions.
69% agree that making corporations pay big jury awards is the best way to make them follow the law. This is another consistent finding from prior years but slightly up from 2025.
25% say that in general, compensating an injured party is more important than figuring out who is at fault.
66% agree that if a case makes it to trial there is likely some truth to the plaintiff’s claims.
50% say it would be difficult to deliver a jury verdict that meant an injured party would receive no money, which is slightly up from prior years.
64% believe plaintiffs often exaggerate their claims in order to increase damage awards. This is a relatively consistent finding since 2017.
Corporate Ethics
63% agree that corporations are more unethical today than they were 5 years ago.
79% say they have less trust in many U.S. institutions these days including large corporations. This percentage is ticking upwards.
50% agree that juries should punish corporations for unethical conduct even if that conduct was legal. This is consistent with years prior.
Corporation Versus Corporations
65% think companies frequently sue other companies for bad business deals.
76% say a company will break a contract if it thinks it can get away with it. This percentage has been consistent over the 9-year span.
Employment Litigation
When asked how common race discrimination on the job in the U.S. is, 44% said common and 22% said very common.
When asked how common gender discrimination on the job in the U.S. is, 46% said common and 22% said very common. This has not significantly changed from 2022.
77% believe we need to strengthen laws against employer discrimination in this country. This is consistent with the past few years.
Insurance
79% agree that insurance companies will do anything they can to avoid paying claims to their policyholders.
Social Inflation
54% agreed with the following statement: “Given the high cost of living nowadays if I was awarding damages to a plaintiff I would err on the side of a higher monetary amount.” This has been pretty consistent over the past few years.
70% agreed that if they were awarding money to a plaintiff, they would take into consideration that the cost of living has increased. This too has been pretty consistent over the past several years.
69% of respondents felt that they would expect damage awards to increase these days due to everything costing a lot more.
Almost half (49%) agree that because of inflation, plaintiffs who win lawsuits should get a lot more than they normally would.
