Rule 48.Juries of less than twelve — Majority verdict.

Alabama’s default rule for a civil jury trial is a jury of twelve people who must agree unanimously before they can return a verdict. Rule 48 gives the parties a way around both of those defaults, but only if everyone agrees. The parties can stipulate to seat fewer than twelve jurors, and they can stipulate that a verdict reached by some stated majority — ten of twelve, for example — will count as the jury’s verdict, even without unanimity. Neither change happens automatically; the court will not shrink the jury or relax the unanimity requirement unless the parties ask for it together.

This rule matters most when something goes wrong mid-trial. If a juror gets sick, is excused for a family emergency, or otherwise cannot continue after the trial has started, and no alternate is available, the parties may face a choice between stopping the trial altogether or agreeing to finish with the jurors who remain. Rule 48 gives them a lawful path to keep going with a smaller panel instead of losing the time and expense already invested in the trial. The majority-verdict option serves a similar practical purpose: it can help avoid a mistrial when a jury is deadlocked but close to agreement, if both sides are willing to accept less than unanimous consent. Because both options depend entirely on agreement between the parties, neither side can invoke Rule 48 unilaterally, and a party who prefers the traditional twelve-person, unanimous jury is free to insist on it.