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GAJEWSKI v. PAVELO12/22/1994
potential harm, the likelihood that the harm will result from a failure to act with reasonable care, and the identifiability of the particular victim. . . . Other courts>, in carving out similar exceptions to their respective doctrines of governmental immunity, have also considered whether the legislature specifically designated an identifiable subclass as the intended beneficiaries of certain acts . . . whether the relationship was of a voluntary nature . . . ." Id., 647. (Citations omitted; emphasis added.)
The plaintiffs cannot isolate certain words and phrases and claim error. The charge must be examined as a whole, and the charge as a whole is not a misstatement of the law on sovereign immunity. See McSwiggan v. Kaminsky, supra, 35 Conn. App. 681.
III
THE CHARGE AS TO CONTRIBUTORY NEGLIGENCE
We now turn to the plaintiffs' challenge to the charge on contributory negligence. We have already briefly noted in our initial decision that the charges on contributory negligence and comparative negligence were not improper. Gajewski v. Pavelo, supra, 32 Conn. App. 383 n. 6. In arguing that these instructions were confusing, the plaintiffs do not pinpoint the alleged errors. Rather, the plaintiffs make a general argument that "different" standards were given by which to consider any contributory and comparative negligence of the parties, and that the wording of the jury's verdict clearly demonstrates that the jury did not understand the instructions. The wording of the jury verdict was determined to mean that the jury believed that the plaintiffs had failed to meet their burden of proof, and that the jury never reached the issue of the defendants' special defenses. Gajewski v. Pavelo, supra, 229 Conn. 837-38.
The gist of the plaintiffs' argument appears to be that the jury had too many parties' actions and too many parties' claims to consider. Having examined the entire charge to the jury, we conclude that the instructions on contributory and comparative negligence, consisting of approximately twenty pages, are not confusing. We could not find any misstatement of the
law. In fact, the trial court gave detailed instructions, complete with accurate hypotheticals. The plaintiffs must show more than that this was a complicated case to support their claim that the jury was confused.
We conclude that taken as a whole, the trial court's charge was an adequate guide for the jury and that it was not reasonably possible that the jury was misled.
The judgment is affirmed.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.
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