One thing that comes up in personal injury cases is the "Request to Charge". At the end of the trial, after the lawyers' closing statements, the judge reads a series of instructions to the jury. These instructions are called charges. In essence, the judge explains the law.
Over the years, certain standard instructions have been developed. In New York civil cases, they are contained in a set of books call the PJI -- Pattern Jury Instructions.
The charges explain the concept of negligence, and a variety of detailed issues have been well resolved. For example, in the burned foot case I described in a previous post, my client went into the defendants' house to protect both the house and the child inside.
http://albany-injury-lawyer.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/12/upcoming_trials.html
That brings up not one but two pattern charges from the PJI. PJI 2:41 covers the standard by which a plaintiff is judged when she acts in an emergency situation to rescue a person. 2:42 covers the standard when the plaintiff is rescuing property. Also, 2:13 covers the foreseeability that a defendant should be aware a rescuer might be injured by their negligence.
Meanwhile, 2:90 discusses the "possessors' liability for condition of land". Here, the defendants are the possessors of the land in question, they left a dangerous condition on their property (a pot of grease under a sparking fan), and plaintiff was injured by the resulting fire.
There is even a charge explaining to the jury the life expectancy of the plaintiff, for their consideration in determining how much to award for future damages. In this case the plaintiff, age 27, has a life expectancy according to the tables of 48.2 years. Hopefully they'll want to award her $10K/year for the next 50 years, but now I'm being unreasonably optimistic.
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