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Pryor v. Hoskins9/11/2002
ct." Kelley v. Watson, 677 N.E.2d 1053, 1056 (Ind. Ct. App. 1997). An instructional error "is cause for reversal only if the instructions as a whole failed to inform the jury as to the applicable law or otherwise misled the jury." Id.
Indiana's Pattern Jury Instruction, No. 6.03(A), applicable to assessing comparative fault with a single plaintiff and a single defendant, is nearly identical to that given by the trial court up to the point about which the truckers objected. At that point, the recommended Pattern Jury Instruction states that "if the Defendant is not at fault or if Plaintiff's fault is greater than 50 percent, then you must return your verdict for the Defendant and against the Plaintiff . . . ." Indiana Pattern Jury Instructions (2d ed. 2001). The highlighted phrase herein was omitted from the trial court's jury instruction.
We observed in Evans v. Schenk Cattle Co., Inc., 558 N.E.2d 892, 896 (Ind. Ct. App. 1990), trans. denied, that an instruction which advises the jury to first consider whether there was any fault on the part of the defendant "allows the jury an efficient and expedited means to render a favorable verdict for the defendant when it finds no negligence on the defendant's part." In such a case, the jury would otherwise embark on "a meaningless exercise of first allocating 0% fault to the defendant and then finding the defendant not negligent." Id.
As Hoskins observes, the instruction given by the trial court is not an incorrect statement of the law. See Kelley, 677 N.E.2d at 1076. And, we do not find it to actually "mislead" as to the requirements of the law here. Id. However, Indiana Pattern Jury Instruction 6.03(A) does contemplate an initial consideration by the jury as to whether the defendant is "not at fault." For that reason, we believe the better practice would be to employ all of the actual language found in the pattern instruction upon retrial.
With respect to the jury verdict forms, the recommendation of the Indiana Judges Association is that "Verdict Form No. 37.01(A) should be used along with Comparative Fault Instruction No. 6.03(A)," as they were "drafted to compl ment one another." Comments to Verdict Form No. 37.03(A), Indiana Pattern Jury Instructions (2d ed. 2001). The recommended verdict form consists of two parts: "Verdict for Defendant," and "Verdict for Plaintiff." Because the trial court followed this recommendation, we find no error therein.
3. Instruction 13
The truckers also assert that the trial court erred when it instructed the jury as follows:
You are instructed that it is the law in this State, pursuant to Indiana Code, Section 9-19-6-7(4)(D) and (F), that every trailer or semi-trailer having a gross weight greater than three thousand (3,000) pounds shall have, at minimum, "on the rear, two (2) clearance lamps, one (1) at each side" and "one (1) stoplight. You are further instructed that the law requires, under Section 9-19-6-10(b) that these lamps "must be capable of being seen and distinguished under normal atmospheric conditions . . . at a distance of five hundred (500) feet from . . . the rear of the vehicle."
If you find from the evidence in the case the defendants' trailer did not have rear clearance lamps or a stoplight capable of being seen and distinguished from a distance of five hundred (500) feet from the rear of the vehicle under normal atmospheric conditions, without excuse or justification, and that the lack of visibility of such clearance lamps or stoplight was a proximate cause of the collision and the plaintiff's resulting injuries, such a violation of the statute would constitute fault to be assessed against the defendants. (Appellee'
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