Opinion ID: 2169857
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The Wording of the Spoliation Instruction

Text: The defendants also argue that the particular wording employed by the trial justice in her jury instruction concerning spoliation constituted reversible error due to the fact that, according to defendants, the instruction did not require the jury, as a precondition to finding spoliation, to first find that defendants had either deliberately or negligently caused an accident report to be lost or destroyed. In order to properly preserve an objection to a particular jury instruction, a party must distinctly state the matter to which the party objects and the grounds for that objection before the jury begins its deliberation. Super. Ct. R. Civ. P. 51(b). As we have frequently pointed out, Rule 51(b) bars a party from challenging an erroneous instruction unless [the party] lodges an objection to the charge which is specific enough to alert the trial justice as to the nature of [the trial justice's] alleged error. Majewski v. Porter, 121 R.I. 757, 764-65, 403 A.2d 248, 252 (1979); see also Rossi, 847 A.2d at 293; Bourque v. Stop & Shop Companies., Inc., 814 A.2d 320, 325 (R.I.2003); Patino v. Suchnik, 770 A.2d 861, 867 (R.I.2001). [5] Absent a sufficiently specific objection, the trial justice cannot be expected to divine the nature of counsel's objection. See Seabra v. Puritan Life Insurance Co., 117 R.I. 488, 503, 369 A.2d 652, 661 (1977). In Seabra, 117 R.I. at 504, 369 A.2d at 662, this Court held that there was no merit to an appeal predicated upon an allegedly erroneous jury charge where [t]here was nothing in [defendant's] objection which would alert the trial justice that his    terminology was being challenged. Similarly, in the instant case, there was nothing in defendants' objection to the spoliation instruction which would have alerted the trial justice to the fact that defendants were challenging her use of the phrase innocent or intentional or    somewhere between the two. [6] Because defendants did not state with specificity the grounds for their objection to the charge, we shall not address their challenge on appeal to the quoted phrase from the instructions. [7]