Opinion ID: 883733
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Plaintiff's Proposed Instructions #17, 24, and 25

Text: Contreras argues that these instructions were needed to properly present his theory of the case. A review of these instructions reveals that they are duplicitous and not correct statements of the law. Proposed Instruction #17 states: More than one person may be liable for causing an injury. A defendant may not avoid liability by claiming that some other person (whether or not named as a defendant in this action) helped cause the injury. The idea of multiple liable parties was handled adequately by the court's instructions #10 through 18. The proposed wording is not totally accurate because it does not present the entire picture to the jury. The court's instructions #13 and #14 talk about the specifics of both plaintiff's and defendant's burden of proof for their theories of liability. Proposed Instruction #24 states: Where one has negligently caused a condition of danger, he is not relieved of responsibility for damage caused to another merely because the injury also involved the later misconduct of someone else, if that conduct was foreseeable. The court gave instead Instruction #18: An intervening cause does not relieve an actor from liability for his negligent acts where the intervening cause is one which the defendant might reasonably anticipate under the circumstances. The Proposed Instruction #24 could possibly confuse the jury into assuming that defendant had acted in a negligent manner. We have already stated that the assumption that negligence occurred is not accurate and any instruction proposed which assumed this would be in error. Proposed Instruction #25 states: Where the negligent conduct of an actor creates or increases the risk of a particular harm and is a substantial factor in causing that harm, the fact that the harm is brought about through intervention of another force does not relieve the actor of liability, except where harm is intentionally caused by a third person and is not within the scope of risk created by the actor's conduct. The submitted instruction contains a reference to harm intentionally caused by a third party and such a theory was not a part of this case. The court adequately covered the theory of intervening cause in its instruction #18.