Opinion ID: 1395358
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Denial of Jury Instructions

Text: Sloan's final assignments of error challenge the trial court's refusal of two jury instructions which reflected additional theories of liability not presented in the first trial. [4] The first instruction was based on a theory of common law partnership and the second on a theory of joint entrepreneurship. The trial court denied these instructions, finding that Sloan had not identified either theory as a basis for recovery prior to the time the instructions were offered and that neither theory could preempt the statutory requirements governing a limited partnership. We agree. Our jurisprudence prohibits the entry of judgment on a right not pleaded and claimed. Ted Lansing Supply Co. v. Royal Aluminum & Constr. Corp., 221 Va. 1139, 1141, 277 S.E.2d 228, 229 (1981). The pleadings in this case do not assert that Thornton is personally liable to Sloan under a theory of common law partnership or joint entrepreneurship. In Sloan's responses to interrogatories propounded by Thornton prior to the first trial, only the liability theories that Thornton was a general partner or a limited partner in control, or that the corporate veil should be pierced, and facts relied upon to support those theories, were identified. The supplemental discovery provided prior to the second trial did not materially alter Sloan's previous responses. The jury instructions in question were not provided to Thornton until Thornton made his motion to strike Sloan's evidence in the second trial. Even though Sloan argues that testimony adduced for the first time in the second trial supported his alternate theories, the record shows that the crux of this new testimony, that Rawn and Thornton were in the project for a profit, was merely a repetition of testimony adduced in the first trial. Finally, the trial court correctly held that the proposed jury instructions were improper. Sloan never asserted that KTDP was anything other than a limited partnership. The liabilities of limited partners for the debts of limited partnerships are governed by the Virginia Revised Uniform Limited Partnership Act, not the common law. See, e.g., R.S. Oglesby Co. v. Lindsey, 112 Va. 767, 773, 72 S.E. 672, 676 (1911). Therefore, the proffered instructions were improper under the circumstances of this case. In conclusion, for the reasons stated, we find no error in the actions of the trial court in setting aside the first jury verdict, in striking Sloan's evidence on his liability theories of general partner and limited partner in control in the second trial, and in refusing Sloan's requested jury instructions on common law partnership and joint entrepreneurship in the second trial. Accordingly, we will affirm the March 16, 1994 judgment of the trial court. Affirmed.