Bifurcated Trial

See also

Bifurcate in the American legal Encyclopedia

What does Bifurcated Trial mean in American Law?

The definition of Bifurcated Trial in the law of the United States, as defined by the lexicographer Arthur Leff in his legal dictionary is:

A “split” trial or other hearing, i.e., one at which one or more issues are addressed separately from one or more others, all of which are relevant to the particular matter. Common examples are the separate consideration of guilt and penalty at criminal (especially capital) trials and the separate trial of liability before damages at a personal injury case. But (though not usually so thought of) many actions for preliminary relief actually entail bifurcation, e.g., when property is sought to be repossessed for non-payment of debt, it is not uncommon to try first only a limited number of issues, e.g., were the goods sold by the seller/lender and were they paid for, in deciding whether possession is to go back to the seller, with all buyer defenses put over to a later trial on the merits of the claim.

It is argued in favor of bifurcated trials that they can save litigation effort (e.g., if in a personal injury case the defendant wins on liability, there will be no need to try the complex question of damages), and that they prevent the transfer of irrelevant and prejudicial information between segments of the same case, e.g., the horribleness of the plaintiff”s injuries might tempt the jury to find the defendant liable no matter what, just to get the plaintiff some recompense. The plaintiffs” bar, naturally, hates bifurcated trials because its members believe that the jury should know that real and awful injuries are involved.