Sympathy management addresses how the defense acknowledges a plaintiff's injuries while contesting liability or damages. It includes tone, cross-examination approach, and explicit acknowledgment in argument.
Instructions direct juries to decide without sympathy.
Alternative Names:
Managing Sympathy, Sympathy in Trial
Why it Matters?
Contesting a genuinely injured plaintiff's damages requires acknowledging the injury first, since a defense that appears to deny obvious suffering loses credibility on every other issue. Aggressive cross-examination of a sympathetic witness is the recurring error, because the jury measures the defense against the treatment of the plaintiff. Separating acknowledgment of injury from acceptance of causation and liability is the framing that works.
Frequently Confused with
Related terms
Frequently asked questions
Why acknowledge the plaintiff's injuries?
What is the recurring error?
