United States District Court, D. Connecticut
ANNOTATED
POST-TRIAL JURY INSTRUCTIONS (Revised and with
Redlines)
TABLE
OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION
.............................................................................................................................
4
I.
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS
..................................................................................................
5
A. ROLE
OF THE COURT
...........................................................................................................
5
B.
INSTRUCTIONS TO BE CONSIDERED AS A WHOLE
...................................................... 5
C. BOTH
SIDES ENTITLED TO FULL AND FAIR HEARING
................................................ 6
D.
OBJECTIONS AND RULINGS
..............................................................................................
6
E.
DUTIES OF THE JURY
...........................................................................................................
7
F.
“PROVE”, “FIND”, AND “ESTABLISH
................................................................................
8
G.
BURDEN OF PROOF - PREPONDERANCE OF THE EVIDENCE
...................................... 9
H.
FORMS OF EVIDENCE
........................................................................................................
10
I. WHAT
IS NOT EVIDENCE
..................................................................................................
10
J.
DIRECT & CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE
.....................................................................
11
K.
INFERENCE DEFINED
........................................................................................................
12
L.
WITNESS CREDIBILITY - GENERAL
...............................................................................
13
M. ALL
PERSONS STAND EQUAL BEFORE THE LAW
....................................................... 14
N.
IMPEACHMENT OF WITNESS
...........................................................................................
14
O.
UNCONTRADICTED TESTIMONY
...................................................................................
14
II.
THE ISSUES AND CLAIMS IN THIS CASE
.....................................................................
16
A.
TITLE VII
...............................................................................................................................
16
B.
ELEMENTS OF A TITLE VII HOSTILE WORK ENVIRONMENT CLAIM
..................... 17
1.
Unwelcome Harassment, Ridicule, Insult, or Other Abusive
Conduct .............................. 17
2.
Motivated, at Least in Part, by Race
..................................................................................
18
3.
Severe or Pervasive
............................................................................................................
20
a. Objective Component
....................................................................................................
20
b. Subjective Component
..................................................................................................
23
4.
Employer's Liability
..........................................................................................................
24
a. Co-Worker vs. Supervisor
.............................................................................................
24
b. Employer's Liability For Actions Of Supervisors
........................................................ 25
c. Employer's Liability for Actions of Co-Workers
......................................................... 26
III.
DAMAGES
...............................................................................................................................
28
A.
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS ON DAMAGES
.....................................................................
28
B.
COMPENSATORY DAMAGES
..........................................................................................
29
1. Lost Income or
Backpay
................................................................................................
3030
2. Emotional Distress
.........................................................................................................
3030
C.
NOMINAL DAMAGES
........................................................................................................
30
D.
PUNITIVE DAMAGES
.........................................................................................................
31
IV.
FINAL INSTRUCTIONS
.......................................................................................................
33
A. NOTE
TAKING
.....................................................................................................................
33
B.
UNANIMOUSVERDICT
.....................................................................................................
33
C.
FOREPERSON AND DELIBERATIONS
.............................................................................
34
D.
VERDICT FORM
...................................................................................................................
34
E.
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS
.........................................................................................
35
INTRODUCTION
Members
of the jury, you now have heard all of the evidence. I now
will instruct you about the law applicable to this case.
After these instructions, you will hear the closing arguments
of counsel, and I will provide some final instructions. You
then will return to the jury room to deliberate in accordance
with these instructions. But first, I want to express my
gratitude to each of you for the time and energy you have
devoted to this trial. Jury service is rarely convenient, but
without you, justice could not be done in this case. Thank
you.
It will
take some time for me to read these instructions to you, but
it is important for you to listen carefully. I will go as
slowly as I can and be as clear as possible. At the start of
the trial, I told you that your principal function was to
listen carefully and observe each witness who testified. I
ask you to give that same careful attention, as I instruct
you on the law. You have been provided with a copy of my
instructions so that you can read along as we go. Please feel
free to write on these copies. You will be permitted to take
them into the jury room with you.
My
instructions will be in three parts. First, I will discuss
general rules concerning the role of the court and the duty
of the jury. Second, I will go over the issues in this case
and set out the specific questions of fact that you must
answer based on the evidence at trial. Third, I will give you
some rules and guidelines for your deliberations.
Before
we begin, I ask you to look over the other document that was
placed on your seats-namely, the Verdict Form. After I have
given these instructions and you hear the closing arguments
of counsel, you will go back into the jury room to
deliberate. You will have with you the following: the
original of the Verdict Form, copies of the original
exhibits, your copies of these instructions, and any personal
notes that you may have taken. At the conclusion of your
deliberations, you will use the Verdict Form to report your
verdict to the court and the parties.
I.
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS
A.
ROLE OF THE COURT
As the
judge, I perform two basic functions during the trial. First,
I decide what evidence you may consider. You have heard me
doing that throughout the trial. Second, I instruct you on
the law that you are to apply to the facts in this case. I
gave you some preliminary instructions before trial began,
and some during the course of the trial, but it is now-at the
close of evidence-that the final instructions are given, so
please be patient and listen closely. If, in closing
arguments, the parties state the law differently from the way
I am explaining it to you, you are to follow my instructions.
I
believe that everything I am going to tell you now is
consistent with the preliminary instructions I gave you at
the start of the trial, but if you have any doubt, you should
not rely on anything different I may have said in the
preliminary instructions. The instructions I am giving you
now must guide your deliberations in this case.
B.
INSTRUCTIONS TO BE CONSIDERED AS A WHOLE
This is
a long instruction, and I may repeat certain parts. That does
not mean that those parts should be emphasized. You should
not single out any one part of my instructions and ignore the
rest. Instead, you should consider all of the instructions as
a whole and consider each instruction in light of all the
others. The order in which I give you instructions does not
indicate their relative importance. Do not read into these
instructions, or into anything I have said or done, any
suggestion about what verdict you should return-that is a
matter for you alone to decide.
I
should also point out to you that, although you have been
given a copy of the instructions to follow as I deliver them,
if I say aloud anything at all different from what is
written, you must follow what I say here in court.
C.
BOTH SIDES ENTITLED TO FULL AND FAIR HEARING
Regardless
of your ultimate decision about the parties' claims and
defenses, the parties in this case are entitled to a full and
fair hearing. The parties are entitled to a trial free from
prejudice or bias. Our justice system cannot work unless you
reach your verdict through a fair and impartial consideration
of the evidence, regardless of the final outcome of the case.
It is
your duty, therefore, to give careful thought to every issue
set forth by these instructions, regardless of any general
feeling that you may have about which party is right. In
deciding the facts or applying the law as I have given it to
you, you must not be swayed by bias or prejudice for or
against any party. All persons and all institutions stand
equal before the law and are to be dealt with as equals in a
court of justice, regardless of who they are. You must not be
swayed by your personal opinions about any of the issues
raised in this trial. You should not be swayed by sympathy.
You should be guided solely by the evidence presented during
trial and the law that I give you, without regard to the
consequences of your verdict.
D.
OBJECTIONS AND RULINGS
Our
courts operate under an adversary system in which we believe
that the truth will emerge through the competing
presentations of adverse parties. It is the role of attorneys
to press as hard as they can for their respective positions,
and in fulfilling that role, they have a duty to object to
the introduction of evidence that they believe is not
properly admissible. You should not prefer or dislike an
attorney or a party because an attorney did or did not make
objections during the trial. The application of the rules of
evidence is not always clear, and lawyers often disagree
about them. It has been my job as the judge to resolve these
disputes during the course of the trial.
It is
important for you to realize, however, that my rulings on
evidentiary matters have nothing to do with the ultimate
merits of the case, and are not to be considered as a
preference for one side or the other. You are not to concern
yourself with why a lawyer made an objection or why I ruled
on it in the manner that I did. You should draw no inference
from the fact that a lawyer objected to evidence. Nor should
you draw any inference from the fact that I might have
sustained or overruled an objection. My rulings on objections
have nothing to do with the merits of the case or with the
credibility of the witnesses If I have allowed testimony or
evidence that an attorney objected to, you should not give
that evidence greater or lesser weight. If I have sustained
an objection to a question asked of a witness, you must
disregard the question entirely, and may draw no inference
from the question, nor speculate about what the witness would
have said, if he or she had been permitted to answer the
question. You must disregard any testimony that I have
stricken, because it is not evidence. Finally, if I
instructed you to consider an item of evidence for a limited
purpose only, you must follow that limiting instruction and
use the evidence only for the limited purpose for which it
was admitted.
One
further note about attorneys: during the course of the trial,
one cannot help but recognize the various personalities and
styles of the attorneys. But it is important for you as
jurors to recognize that this is not a contest among
attorneys. Whatever you may think about the conduct of the
lawyers during this trial, you must remember that this
dispute is about the parties, not the lawyers, and you must
decide this case solely on the basis of the evidence.
Remember, statements and characterizations of the evidence by
the attorneys are not evidence. If you find their closing
arguments to be helpful, take advantage of them, but it is
your memory, your evaluation of the evidence, and my
instructions on the law that matter in this case
E.
DUTIES OF THE JURY
As
members of the jury, you are the sole and exclusive judges of
the facts. It is your duty to find the facts from all of the
evidence in the case. You determine the credibility of
witnesses. You resolve any conflicts that may exist in the
testimony. You draw whatever reasonable inferences you decide
should be drawn from the facts you determine, and you weigh
the evidence.
No one
may invade your province or function as jurors. Because you
are the sole and exclusive judges of the facts, I do not mean
to indicate, in this charge or at any time during the trial,
any opinion as to the facts or as to what your verdict should
be. My rulings on the admissibility of evidence during the
trial are not any indication of a view of what your decision
should be or which party should prevail in this case, because
I have no view on those matters.
In
order to determine the facts, you must rely upon your own
recollection of the evidence. In reaching a verdict, you must
carefully and impartially consider all of the evidence in the
case and then apply the law, as I have explained it to you.
Regardless of any opinion you may have about what the law is
or ought to be, it would be a violation of your sworn duty to
base a verdict upon any understanding or interpretation of
the law other than the one I give you. You must do your duty
as jurors regardless of any personal likes, dislikes,
opinions, prejudices, or sympathies that you may have. In
other words, you must decide the case solely on the evidence
before you, and you must do so fairly and impartially.
You
must reach a unanimous verdict; that is, a verdict agreed
upon by each of you. You must each decide the case for
yourself, but do so only after impartial consideration of the
evidence in the case with your fellow jurors.
F.
“PROVE”, “FIND”, AND
“ESTABLISH
Throughout
the remainder of my instructions to you, I will use the word
“prove” when talking about what Ms. James must do
in order to win this case. My use of the word
“prove” means “prove by the appropriate
burden of proof, ” even if I do not always repeat those
words. Similarly, when I speak of your “finding”
various facts or the parties “establishing”
various facts, you must determine whether those facts have
been proven by the appropriate burden of proof, even if I
simply use the word “find” or
“establish.”
G.
BURDEN OF PROOF - PREPONDERANCE OF THE EVIDENCE
Because
this is a civil case, Ms. James has the burden of proving
every disputed element of her claims by a preponderance of
the evidence.
To
establish a fact by a preponderance of the evidence, the
party with the burden of proof must prove that the fact is
more likely true than not true. You will recall the example I
gave you at the beginning of this trial of the scales of
justice. For the plaintiff's claims, if you find that the
credible evidence on a given issue is evenly divided between
the plaintiff and the defendant, or tips in favor of the
defendant, then you must decide that issue for that
defendant. However, if the plaintiff proves that a fact is
more likely true than not, even if only slightly more likely
true than not, then you are to find that the plaintiff has
proven that fact by a preponderance of the evidence.
In
determining whether a claim has been proven by a
preponderance of the evidence, you may consider the testimony
of all witnesses, regardless of who may have called them, and
all the exhibits received in evidence, regardless of who may
have presented them. A preponderance of the evidence means
the greater weight of the evidence; it refers to the quality
and persuasiveness of the evidence, not to the number of
witnesses or documents presented.
Some of
you may have heard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, which
is the proper standard of proof in a criminal trial. That
requirement does not apply to a civil case such as this, and
you should not consider or discuss that standard in your
deliberations.
H.
FORMS OF EVIDENCE
Next, I
want to discuss with you generally what we mean by evidence
and how you should consider it. The evidence from which you
are to decide what the facts are comes in a few forms:
First,
there is the sworn testimony of witnesses, both on direct
examination and cross-examination, and regardless of who
called the witness.
Second,
there are the exhibits that have been received into the trial
record. All of the exhibits that have been admitted into
evidence will be with you in the jury room. If an exhibit has
been admitted into evidence, it is evidence that can be
considered by you, regardless of whether any witness referred
to the exhibit or testified about it during the trial.
One
word about the exhibits that you will have in the jury room.
You may notice that certain exhibit numbers have not been
used. For example, you may find exhibit number 5 and number 7
but not find number 6. Please do not be concerned about the
numerical sequencing of exhibits and do not think that an
exhibit is missing. The reason for what would otherwise seem
like gaps is that we assigned all of the potential trial
exhibits numbers long before trial, and then before or during
trial, counsel decided not to introduce certain exhibits or
certain exhibits were simply marked for identification
purposes and then not made full exhibits. We have checked ...