Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-5_14-cv-00817/USCOURTS-cand-5_14-cv-00817-11/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 720
Nature of Suit: Labor Management Relations Act
Cause of Action: 29:185 Labor/Mgt. Relations (Contracts)

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Case No. 14-CV-00817-LHK 

PRELIMINARY JURY INSTRUCTIONS (CLEAN)

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United States District Court

Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

SAN JOSE DIVISION

CHARLES LOFT,

Plaintiff,

v.

STATIONARY ENGINEERS, LOCAL 39 

PTF, LLC,

Defendant.

Case No. 14-CV-00817-LHK 

PRELIMINARY JURY INSTRUCTIONS 

(CLEAN)

Dated: June 1, 2015 ______________________________

LUCY H. KOH

United States District Judge

Case 5:14-cv-00817-LHK Document 93 Filed 06/01/15 Page 1 of 16
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1. DUTY OF JURY 

Ladies and gentlemen: You are now the jury in this case. It is my duty to instruct you on the law.

These instructions are preliminary instructions to help you understand the principles that apply to 

civil trials and to help you understand the evidence as you listen to it. You will be allowed to keep 

this set throughout the trial to which to refer. This set of instructions is not to be taken home and 

must remain in the jury room when you leave in the evenings. At the end of the trial, I will give 

you a final set of instructions. It is the final set of instructions which will govern your 

deliberations.

You must not infer from these instructions or from anything I may say or do as indicating that I 

have an opinion regarding the evidence or what your verdict should be.

It is your duty to find the facts from all the evidence in the case. To those facts you will apply the 

law as I give it to you. You must follow the law as I give it to you whether you agree with it or 

not. And you must not be influenced by any personal likes or dislikes, opinions, prejudices, or 

sympathy. That means that you must decide the case solely on the evidence before you. You will 

recall that you took an oath to do so.

In following my instructions, you must follow all of them and not single out some and ignore 

others; they are all important.

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2. CLAIMS AND DEFENSES

To help you follow the evidence, I will give you a brief summary of the positions of the parties:

The plaintiff claims first that the defendant failed to give the plaintiff notice of the specific charges 

against him, failed to provide the plaintiff with a reasonable time to prepare his defenses, and 

failed to give the plaintiff a full and fair trial. Second, the plaintiff claims that the defendant’s 

conduct breached the constitution of the international union. Third, the plaintiff claims that the 

defendant breached its duty of fair representation. Finally, the plaintiff claims that the defendant 

intentionally inflicted emotional distress upon the plaintiff. The plaintiff has the burden of 

proving these claims by a preponderance of the evidence. 

The defendant denies plaintiff’s claims.

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3. BURDEN OF PROOF—PREPONDERANCE OF THE EVIDENCE

When a party has the burden of proof on any claim by a preponderance of the evidence, it means 

you must be persuaded by the evidence that the claim is more probably true than not true.

You should base your decision on all of the evidence, regardless of which party presented it.

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4. WHAT IS EVIDENCE

The evidence you are to consider in deciding what the facts are consists of:

(1) the sworn testimony of any witness; 

(2) the exhibits which are received in evidence; and

(3) any facts to which the lawyers have agreed.

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5. WHAT IS NOT EVIDENCE

In reaching your verdict, you may consider only the testimony and exhibits received into evidence. 

Certain things are not evidence, and you may not consider them in deciding what the facts are. I 

will list them for you:

(1) Arguments and statements by lawyers are not evidence. The lawyers are not 

witnesses. What they will say in their opening statements, will say in their closing 

arguments, and at other times is intended to help you interpret the evidence, but it is 

not evidence. If the facts as you remember them differ from the way the lawyers 

have stated them, your memory of them controls.

(2) Questions and objections by lawyers are not evidence. Attorneys have a duty to 

their clients to object when they believe a question is improper under the rules of 

evidence. You should not be influenced by the objection or by the court’s ruling on 

it.

(3) Testimony that has been excluded or stricken, or that you have been instructed 

to disregard, is not evidence and must not be considered. In addition sometimes 

testimony and exhibits are received only for a limited purpose; when I give a 

limiting instruction, you must follow it.

(4) Anything you may have seen or heard when the court was not in session is not 

evidence. You are to decide the case solely on the evidence received at the trial.

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6. EVIDENCE FOR LIMITED PURPOSE

Some evidence may be admitted for a limited purpose only.

When I instruct you that an item of evidence has been admitted for a limited purpose, you must 

consider it only for that limited purpose and for no other.

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7. DIRECT OR CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

Evidence may be direct or circumstantial. Direct evidence is direct proof of a fact, such as 

testimony by a witness about what that witness personally saw or heard or did. Circumstantial 

evidence is proof of one or more facts from which you could find another fact. You should 

consider both kinds of evidence. The law makes no distinction between the weight to be given to 

either direct or circumstantial evidence. It is for you to decide how much weight to give to any 

evidence.

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8. RULING ON OBJECTIONS

There are rules of evidence that control what can be received into evidence. When a lawyer asks a 

question or offers an exhibit into evidence and a lawyer on the other side thinks that it is not 

permitted by the rules of evidence, that lawyer may object. If I overrule the objection, the 

question may be answered or the exhibit received. If I sustain the objection, the question cannot 

be answered, and the exhibit cannot be received. Whenever I sustain an objection to a question, 

you must ignore the question and must not guess what the answer might have been.

Sometimes I may order that evidence be stricken from the record and that you disregard or ignore 

the evidence. That means that when you are deciding the case, you must not consider the evidence 

that I told you to disregard.

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9. CREDIBILITY OF WITNESSES

In deciding the facts in this case, you may have to decide which testimony to believe and which 

testimony not to believe. You may believe everything a witness says, or part of it, or none of it. 

Proof of a fact does not necessarily depend on the number of witnesses who testify about it.

In considering the testimony of any witness, you may take into account:

(1) the opportunity and ability of the witness to see or hear or know the things testified

to;

(2) the witness’s memory;

(3) the witness’s manner while testifying;

(4) the witness’s interest in the outcome of the case and any bias or prejudice;

(5) whether other evidence contradicted the witness’s testimony;

(6) the reasonableness of the witness’s testimony in light of all the evidence; and

(7) any other factors that bear on believability.

The weight of the evidence as to a fact does not necessarily depend on the number of witnesses 

who testify about it.

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10. STIPULATIONS OF FACT

The parties have agreed to certain facts that will be read to you. You should therefore treat these 

facts as having been proved.

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11. CONDUCT OF THE JURY

I will now say a few words about your conduct as jurors.

First, keep an open mind throughout the trial, and do not decide what the verdict should be until 

you and your fellow jurors have completed your deliberations at the end of the case.

Second, because you must decide this case based only on the evidence received in the case and on 

my instructions as to the law that applies, you must not be exposed to any other information about 

the case or to the issues it involves during the course of your jury duty. Thus, until the end of the 

case or unless I tell you otherwise:

Do not communicate with anyone in any way and do not let anyone else 

communicate with you in any way about the merits of the case or anything to do 

with it. This includes discussing the case in person, in writing, by phone or 

electronic means, via e-mail, text messaging, or any Internet chat room, blog, Web 

site or other feature. This applies to communicating with your fellow jurors until I 

give you the case for deliberation, and it applies to communicating with everyone 

else including your family members, your employer, the media or press, and the 

people involved in the trial, although you may notify your family and your 

employer that you have been seated as a juror in the case. But, if you are asked or 

approached in any way about your jury service or anything about this case, you 

must respond that you have been ordered not to discuss the matter and to report the 

contact to the court.

Because you will receive all the evidence and legal instruction you properly may 

consider to return a verdict: do not read, watch, or listen to any news or media 

accounts or commentary about the case or anything to do with it; do not do any 

research, such as consulting dictionaries, searching the Internet or using other 

reference materials; and do not make any investigation or in any other way try to 

learn about the case on your own.

The law requires these restrictions to ensure the parties have a fair trial based on the same 

evidence that each party has had an opportunity to address. A juror who violates these restrictions 

jeopardizes the fairness of these proceedings, and a mistrial could result that would require the 

entire process to start over. If any juror is exposed to any outside information, please notify the 

court immediately.

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12. NO TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE TO JURY

During deliberations, you will have to make your decision based on what you recall of the 

evidence. You will not have a transcript of the trial. I urge you to pay close attention to the 

testimony as it is given.

If at any time you cannot hear or see the testimony, evidence, questions or arguments, let me know 

so that I can correct the problem.

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13. TAKING NOTES

If you wish, you may take notes to help you remember the evidence. If you do take notes, please 

keep them to yourself until you and your fellow jurors go to the jury room to decide the case. Do 

not let note-taking distract you. When you leave, your notes should be left in the jury room. No 

one will read your notes. They will be destroyed at the conclusion of the case.

Whether or not you take notes, you should rely on your own memory of the evidence. Notes are 

only to assist your memory. You should not be overly influenced by your notes or those of your 

fellow jurors.

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14. BENCH CONFERENCES AND RECESSES

From time to time during the trial, it may become necessary for me to talk with the attorneys out 

of the hearing of the jury, either by having a conference at the bench when the jury is present in 

the courtroom, or by calling a recess. Please understand that while you are waiting, we are 

working. The purpose of these conferences is not to keep relevant information from you, but to 

decide how certain evidence is to be treated under the rules of evidence and to avoid confusion 

and error.

Of course, we will do what we can to keep the number and length of these conferences to a 

minimum. I may not always grant an attorney’s request for a conference. Do not consider my 

granting or denying a request for a conference as any indication of my opinion of the case or of 

what your verdict should be.

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15. OUTLINE OF TRIAL

Trials proceed in the following way: First, each side may make an opening statement.

An opening statement is not evidence. It is simply an outline to help you understand what that 

party expects the evidence will show. A party is not required to make an opening statement.

The plaintiff will then present evidence, and counsel for the defendant may cross-examine. Then 

the defendant may present evidence, and counsel for the plaintiff may cross-examine.

After the evidence has been presented, I will instruct you on the law that applies to the case and 

the attorneys will make closing arguments.

After that, you will go to the jury room to deliberate on your verdict.

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