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GAJEWSKI v. PAVELO6/28/1994
r burden of proof. The trial court instructed the jury that the plaintiffs bore the burden of proving their claims and that the defendants bore the burden of proving their defenses, including contributory negligence. The trial court also charged that if the plaintiffs failed to prove their claims, then the jury was to find for the defendants without considering any further issues. It is presumed that the jury follows the instructions given by the court. Vajda v. Tusla, 214 Conn. 523, 537, 572 A.2d 998 (1990); Tomczuk v. Alvarez, 184 Conn. 182, 186-87,
439 A.2d 935 (1981). Thus, although it is not completely clear, we conclude that, in the context of this case, the jury's statement that the claims were "inconclusive" indicated that the jury had found that the plaintiffs had failed to meet their burden of proof, and that it had declined to consider further issues. The jury's use of the language, "all claims against the defendants . . . are inconclusive," more likely signifies the failure of the plaintiffs to meet their initial burden of proof on their claims than the success of the defendants in meeting the burden of proof on their special defenses. Because the jury specified the basis of its verdict, the Appellate Court incorrectly determined that the general verdict rule applied to this case.
As a result of its conclusion regarding the general verdict rule, the Appellate Court did not reach the claims of instructional error raised by the plaintiffs. In this court, however, the defendants claim, as alternative grounds for affirmance under Practice Book 4140, that the jury charge was not harmful or prejudicial to the plaintiffs: (1) with regard to the duty to warn; and (2) viewed as a whole. The plaintiffs respond, in part, that these claims of the defendants are not adequate alternative grounds to affirm the Appellate Court's judgment because they do not fully address all of the claims of instructional error that the plaintiffs presented to the Appellate Court. It would be impossible to determine whether the defendants' claims here fully respond to the plaintiffs' claims in the Appellate Court without fully parsing each of the plaintiffs' claims in the Appellate Court. The parties' briefs do not adequately perform this task. Rather than undertake the task ourselves, we exercise our discretion to decline
to consider the defendants' claims. We, therefore, remand the case to the Appellate Court for consideration of the merits of the plaintiffs' appeal.
The judgment of the Appellate Court is reversed and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
In this opinion the other justices concurred.
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