Opinion ID: 2258987
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Court's Instructions on Damages

Text: When instructing the jury on the calculation of damages for breach of the Voluntary Agreement, the trial court said that the jury should quantify the damages award as a percentage of the rent paid by each tenant. The tenants also assert that the court gave the jury an erroneous and highly prejudicial special verdict form. Instead of providing a blank space followed by a percentage sign, the verdict form allegedly contained instead a blank space preceded by a dollar sign ( i.e., $___ rather than ___%). This error, the tenants maintain, confused the jury and ultimately led to an award of damages inconsistent with the trial court's instructions. Initially, we note that the verdict form is not in the record, a fact which would normally prompt us to reject the tenants' argument out of hand. [I]t is appellant's duty to present this court with a record sufficient to show affirmatively that error occurred. Cobb v. Standard Drug Co., 453 A.2d 110, 111 (D.C.1982) (citations omitted). [W]e cannot base our review of errors upon statements of counsel which are unsupported by [the] record. D.C. Transit System, Inc. v. Milton, 250 A.2d 549, 550 (citations omitted). Moreover, since the tenants raise this issue for the first time on appeal, this court can reverse only upon a finding of plain error. E.g., District of Columbia v. Wical Limited Partnership, 630 A.2d 174, 182 (D.C.1993). From the limited record before us, we can find no error at all in the court's instructions on damages, let alone plain error. The evidence established the exact amount of rent paid by each tenant plaintiff, and the judge carefully instructed the jury how to calculate the damages as a percentage of that rent. The jury never told the court that it was confused or in need of further instructions; on the contrary, the jury followed the court's instructions exactly. There is nothing in the record to suggest any confusion on the part of the jury or any instructional error on the part of the trial court.