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Anderson v. Webster City Community School District12/20/2000
d the case to the jury. Consequently, the jury was given the responsibility to decide whether or not the school district breached its duty of care under the circumstances. Under this reasonableness standard, it was unnecessary for the jury's determination to be instructed that some risks are inherent in a particular activity. See Peters, 494 N.W.2d at 712-13 (trial court's "comments on potential factual scenarios in which a standard of care may or may not have been adhered to" amounted to comments on the evidence and were "unnecessary for the jury's determination").
Nevertheless, an instruction embodying a potential comment on the evidence does not warrant reversal unless the instruction prejudiced the complaining party. See Condon Auto Sales & Serv., 604 N.W.2d at 593; Vaughan, 542 N.W.2d at 539; 88 C.J.S. Trials § 293, at 803. Prejudice results when the trial court's instruction materially misstates the law, confuses or misleads the jury, or is unduly emphasized. 88 C.J.S. Trials § 371, at 950.
In this case, the instruction neither identified which risks were inherent in the activity nor applied the inherent risk standard to any particular facts. Instead, the district court provided additional instructions that told the jury to specifically consider the standard of reasonable care in light of the particular specifications of negligence pertaining to the failure to properly supervise, inspect, and remove the particular danger.
Jury instructions are to be considered as a whole, not in isolation. Leaf v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 590 N.W.2d 525, 536 (Iowa 1999). In this case, all the instructions when read together properly explained the applicable law to the jury. See id. In addition, the instructions considered as a whole did not mislead the jury, see Thavenet, 589 N.W.2d at 236, nor provided undue emphasis. See Rosenau, 199 N.W.2d at 133 ("instructions should not give undue emphasis to any phase of the case favorable to either side"). Consequently, we find no prejudice occurred to Anderson.
IV. Conclusion.
Although we affirm the district court's decision to deny the motion for a new trial, we do not encourage district courts to utilize the disputed portion of the instruction in this case. The fear that the instruction may be used as a comment on the evidence supports its rejection. We affirm the district court.
AFFIRMED.
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