About this Edition
The current Civil Jury Instruction
Committee was appointed by former Chief Court Administrator William J.
Lavery in March 2006 to review and expand the collection of civil jury
instructions. To date, the committee has added fifty new instructions. The collection was reorganized into 5
substantive areas: Preliminary, General, Torts, Contracts, and
Miscellaneous Actions, with a sixth section for Verdict Forms. The
whole collection has been renumbered. The numbering system was
chosen to be flexible and allow for additions.
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Many new
instructions were added in the Torts section to include:
-
Clear and
Convincing Evidence
-
Damages -
Double or Treble
-
Damages - Loss
of Consortium
-
Damages -
Punitive
-
Damages -
Wrongful Death
-
Allocation of
Negligence - Two Defendants with Special Defense of Comparative
Negligence
-
Apportionment
Claim - One Defendant (No Special Defense) and One Apportionment
Respondent Only
-
Apportionment -
One Defendant (with Special Defense of Comparative Negligence)
and One Non-Defendant Apportionment Respondent
-
Need for
Actual Injury
-
Negligence -
Un/Under-Insured Motorist
-
Commercial Mode
of Operation
-
Private
Nuisance – Injury to Property (revision of prior charge)
In the
Professional Malpractice section, the following instructions were
added:
-
Professional
Malpractice General
-
Fiduciary Duty
-
Legal
Malpractice
-
Legal
Malpractice - Settlement Advice
-
Insurance Agent
Malpractice
In addition,
complete new sections have been added for the following actions:
-
Defamation
-
Emotional
Distress
-
Intentional
Torts
-
Employment
Actions
A new section has
been added for Verdict Forms, which currently contains 2 forms for
apportionment claims. The committee plans to add more forms.
Commentary
Footnotes appear in the body of the instruction to reference case
law discussing specific language.
Authority
The Authority section cites to the primary authorities, including
case law, statutes, and treatises, for the proposition(s) stated in
the instructions.
Some instructions have a Notes section, which provides
practice tips for using and adapting the instructions.
Revisions
The revision date indicates the date the Civil Jury Instructions
Committee approved the adoption or substantive revision of an
instruction. (Currently, all instructions are dated January 1,
2008.) When a minor stylistic change or an update to the
commentary is made, but the substantive body of the instruction
remains the same, it will be indicated by a parenthetical date for
modification. For example, “Revised to January 1, 2008
(modified June 15, 2008)” means that on June 15, 2008, the
instruction or its commentary was modified in some minor way that
did not affect the substance of the instruction.
When a revision or modification is made, it will be announced on the
opening screen and a chronological listing of all changes will be
accessible under Recent Changes.
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