Opinion ID: 556603
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Reversible Error Standard.

Text: 55 Recognition of the mistake does not end our inquiry. Ordinarily, error demands reversal only if it affect[s] the substantial rights of the parties. Fed.R.Civ.P. 61. In this case, appellant's negligence claim was submitted to the jury and a general verdict in ATC's favor eventuated. Not surprisingly, ATC argues that the court's intervention on the warranty count, though erroneous, was inconsequential; the jury's verdict on the negligence count necessarily foretold that ATC would also have prevailed on the warranty claim. Phrased in more neutral terms, if the instructions that the jury should have received on breach of warranty were materially equivalent to, or subsumed by, the instructions actually received on negligence, then the failure to submit the warranty count to the jury was rendered harmless by the verdict on the negligence count. Cf. Allen v. Chance Mfg. Co., 873 F.2d 465, 469 (1st Cir.1989) (error in jury instructions mandates retrial only if the error could have affected the outcome of the jury's deliberations); Flaminio v. Honda Motor Co., 733 F.2d 463, 467-68 (7th Cir.1984) (no error in withholding instruction which, if given, would not have put before the jury a concept of strict liability distinct from the negligence instruction the judge did give). 56