"SERVING ALL OF FLORIDA"
Suit, trial a mesh of school-connected parties
By Linda K. Wertheimer
It seemed like an odd twist of fate when an Orange County teacher driving to work was hit by an Orange County school bus on Clarcona-Ocoee Road.
Then physical education teacher Eugene Pauldine sued his employer, the School Board.
Finally, when the case went to trial in Circuit Court, it turned out that three of the six jurors were Orange County school district employees. Two were teachers; the third was a teacher's aide.
Earlier this week, the jury decided to award $568,051 to the 48-year-old Evans High School teacher.
Pauldine fractured a bone in his lower back in the October 1993 accident and had to undergo surgery.
"This is really strange, very strange," said Russell Troutman, one of Pauldine's attorneys of the string of Orange County school connections in the case.
In jury selection, Troutman and his partner, attorney Roger Helms, had three challenges they could use to remove jurors and had used them by the time they started mulling over whether to keep the Orange County school employees. They could have tried to use the employees' connection to Pauldine's employer to get them off the jury, but decided not to.
"They promised us with all their heart that they would be fair and impartial," Troutman said.
Andrew Thomas, an attorney for Orange County School Board, said he can't recall another case where there have been so many Orange County school connections among the parties involved.
"I guess it's just the luck of the draw," Thomas said.
He said he wasn't sure Pauldine's attorneys could have succeeded in removing the employees from the jury.
From:
The Orlando Sentinel
Sat., July 27, 1996
Troutman, Williams, Irvin, Green, Helms & Polich, P.A.
311 W. Fairbanks Avenue - Winter Park, Florida 32789 - Phone: (407) 647-2277