Opinion ID: 312332
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Error in the Instructions as to Misrepresentation

Text: 84 RCA also claims, as it did at trial, that the District Court erroneously allowed the jury to assess damages for the misrepresentations as to which the jury found that reliance was not justified. RCA contends that this occurred when the District Court instructed the jury as to damages as follows: 85 In assessing the actual damages, if any, sustained by Fredonia Broadcasting Corporation, Incorporated, you may consider all such damages as were proximately caused by the conduct you have already found on the part of the Defendant, RCA. . . . 86 The Court before it made the statement about which RCA complains instructed the jury as follows: 87 Fredonia Broadcasting Corporation, Incorporated, must show a causal connection between the breach and repudiation of the contract and the breach of the warranty of merchantability and the alleged damages. Thus, you should award to the Plaintiff such damages, if any, as you find from a preponderance of the evidence or the direct, natural and proximate result of the breach and repudiation of the contract and breach of warranty of merchantability and that were within the contemplation of the parties at the time of the making of the contract. 88 By this instruction, the Court limited the findings of damages to three specific types of conduct on the part of RCA. The court's allusion to all such conduct as you already have found would refer to these three types of conduct mentioned previously and would not allow the jury to consider other conduct which it had already found. 89 The Court's instruction did not permit the jury to consider or award damages for any type of fraud committed by RCA. 11 The charge to the jury must be taken as a whole and not considered in fragments, Garrett v. Campbell, 5 Cir., 1966, 360 F.2d 382, 386, 387 and cases cited therein, and, therefore, we find no error in the charge. 90 However, since the jury erroneously awarded damages for breach of contract, as discussed supra, the jury's determination of the amount of damages cannot stand. Damages are discussed infra.