Opinion ID: 835035
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: defendant's claim of instructional error

Text: In this court, defendant asserts two interrelated objections to the trial court's rulings on jury instructions: that the court erred in failing to give either of its proffered instructions 41 and 42, and that the court erred in giving the uniform jury instruction without informing the jury of the purposes for which the jury could consider harm to nonparties. [3] Oregon law recognizes two different types of error respecting jury instructions: (1) error in the failure to give a proposed jury instruction, and (2) error in the jury instructions that actually were given. See Bennett v. Farmers Ins. Co., 332 Or. 138, 152-53, 26 P.3d 785 (2001) (so indicating). Williams v. Philip Morris Inc., 344 Or. 45, 55-56, 176 P.3d 1255 (2008) ( Williams III ).
With respect to the first of the errors asserted by defendanterror in the failure to give its proposed jury instructionsOregon law entitles a party to have a proffered instruction given only if that instruction correctly states the law and engages the pleadings and the evidence. Hernandez, 327 Or. at 106, 957 P.2d 147. In Williams II, decided after the decision of the trial court and the Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court concluded that a jury may not    use a punitive damages verdict to punish a defendant directly on account of harms it is alleged to have visited on nonparties to the litigation. 549 U.S. at 355, 127 S.Ct. 1057. However, the Court held that evidence of harms to others could be appropriate and relevant to determining the reprehensibility of defendant's conduct. Id. The Court went on to explain: How can we know whether a jury, in taking account of harm caused others under the rubric of reprehensibility, also seeks to punish the defendant for having caused injury to others? Our answer is that state courts cannot authorize procedures that create an unreasonable and unnecessary risk of any such confusion occurring. In particular, we believe that where the risk of that misunderstanding is a significant onebecause, for instance, of the sort of evidence that was introduced at trial or the kinds of argument the plaintiff made to the jurya court, upon request, must protect against that risk. Although the States have some flexibility to determine what kind of procedures they will implement, federal constitutional law obligates them to provide some form of protection in appropriate cases. Id. at 357, 127 S.Ct. 1057 (emphases in original). Defendant argues that, by virtue of its request, the trial court was required to eliminate the risk of jury misunderstanding and give its proposed instructions, which correctly stated the law. Plaintiff contends that the instructions that defendant proffered were inaccurate, incomplete, and misleading because the instructions not to punish defendant for harms suffered by nonparties or for the impact of its conduct on nonparties, without saying more, directed the jury not to use evidence of such harm or impact for any purpose. Plaintiff asserts that a complete, accurate, and correct instruction would have told the jury that the evidence [of harm to others] was relevant to reprehensibility, but it could not be used to increase the amount of punitive damages in order to punish directly for harm to others. To illustrate that point, plaintiff notes that, since the Supreme Court's decision in Williams II, the Oregon State Bar Committee on Uniform Civil Jury Instructions has developed a uniform civil jury instruction that captures the Court's ruling. UCJI 75.02B (Nov 2009) states: Evidence has been received of harm suffered by persons other than the plaintiff as a result of the defendant's conduct. This evidence may be considered in evaluating the reprehensibility of defendant's conduct. However, you may not award punitive damages to punish the defendant for harm caused to persons other than the plaintiff. [4] Defendant argues that each of the instructions that it proffered were accurate statements of the law and that, particularly when considered in the context of the uniform jury instruction that the trial court gave, its proffered instructions communicated to the jury the distinction between the proper and improper use of evidence of harm to others. Defendant notes that the uniform jury instruction told the jury that it had discretion to award punitive damages if it found that defendant ha[d] shown a reckless and outrageous indifference to a highly unreasonable risk of harm and ha[d] acted with a conscious indifference to the health, safety, and welfare of others.  (Emphasis added.) Thus, defendant asserts, the court did instruct the jury that it could consider harm to others in its analysis of the reprehensibility of defendant's conduct. As noted, a proposed instruction must be complete and accurate in all respects. Hernandez, 327 Or. at 106, 957 P.2d 147. That standard must be understood in the context of the general purpose of jury instructions, which is to reduce the relevant law to terms readily grasped by the jury without doing violence to the applicable legal rule. Rogers v. Meridian Park Hospital, 307 Or. 612, 616, 772 P.2d 929 (1989). For appellate courts reviewing claims of instructional error, the touchstones are legal accuracy and clarity: The parties to any jury case are entitled to have the jury instructed in the law which governs the case in plain, clear, simple language. The objective of the mold, framework and language of the instructions should be to enlighten and to acquaint the jury with the applicable law. Everything which is reasonably capable of confusing or misleading the jury should be avoided. Instructions which mislead or confuse are ground for a reversal or a new trial. Williams et al. v. Portland Gen. Elec., 195 Or. 597, 610, 247 P.2d 494 (1952). The distinction that the Supreme Court has created between constitutionally permissible and impermissible uses of evidence of harm to others is a fine one that easily may be lost. See Williams II, 549 U.S. at 360, 127 S.Ct. 1057 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (This nuance eludes me.); White v. Ford Motor Co., 312 F.3d 998, 1016-17 n. 69 (9th Cir.2002) (the distinction recognized by the Supreme Court might be so gossamer as to be difficult for a jury to apply). Although it is possible that a jury could glean that distinction from defendant's proposed instructions in combination with the uniform jury instruction, it is not probable. Defendant's proposed instructions expressly directed the jury to refrain from using evidence of harm to nonlitigants to punish defendant. The uniform jury instruction was not similarly clear in permitting the jury to use that evidence in assessing the reprehensibility of defendant's conduct and arriving at a punitive damages award. When the law draws a line between the proper and improper use of evidence, a jury instruction must be equally explicit in describing what falls on each side of that line. It is of course true that, under Oregon law, no party is required to request a jury instruction that advances the other party's theory of the case. So, for instance, a plaintiff's proposed instructions would not be incomplete simply because they failed to inform the jury that the defendant had asserted an affirmative defense. But the Court of Appeals overstated that principle when it observed that no party is required to request a jury instruction that advances the use of evidence in a way that benefits the party's adversary. Schwarz, 206 Or.App. at 49, 135 P.3d 409. Where an instruction is necessary to inform the jury of the parameters that it must apply in considering particular evidence, an instruction that does not completely and accurately describe those parameters is erroneous and objectionable, even if the omitted portion of those parameters would benefit the opposing party. We hold that the trial court did not err in refusing to give the instructions that defendant proffered.
We next consider defendant's argument that the trial court erred in giving the uniform jury instruction. As a threshold matter, plaintiff argues that the rules of appellate procedure preclude this court from reaching that argument. ORAP 9.20(2) defines the scope of this court's discretion to consider questions on review. It provides, in part, that unless the court otherwise limits the questions before it on review, the questions before the Supreme Court include all questions properly before the Court of Appeals that the petition or the response claims were erroneously decided by that court. Plaintiff petitioned for review in this court, and defendant submitted a response to the petition. In that response, defendant did not present the issue of the accuracy of the uniform jury instruction. Therefore, plaintiff contends, defendant abandoned the argument it now urges. Defendant acknowledges that it did not include a question about the adequacy of the uniform jury instruction in the eight supplemental questions that it listed in its response to plaintiff's petition for review. Nonetheless, defendant asserts, ORAP 9.20(2) recognizes additional authority for this court to consider other issues that were before the Court of Appeals. In this case, the question whether defendant took the necessary steps to place the accuracy of the uniform jury instruction properly before the Court of Appeals is a close one. Although the record plainly reveals that, at the trial court level, defendant objected and took proper exception to the uniform jury instruction, defendant's opening brief to the Court of Appeals did not raise the uniform jury instruction issue as a discrete claim. In that brief, defendant asserted as its sixteenth assignment of error: The trial court erred by instructing the jury solely on the Oregon statutory factors for assessing punitive damages without also providing defendant's proposed instructions on constitutional limits. In the preservation section of its opening brief, defendant noted that it had objected in the trial court to the uniform jury instruction and, in the argument section, defendant asserted that, as a result of omissions in that instruction, the court had given the jury a roadmap to error. Plaintiff understood defendant's sixteenth assignment of error to assert that the trial court had erred in failing to give defendant's proposed instructions 41 and 42. As to the giving of the uniform jury instruction, plaintiff, in his answering brief, argued that defendant ha[d] waived any challenge to this instruction. In a reply brief, defendant disputed that characterization and asserted that [t]he trial court also erred in giving instructions [on punitive damages] that were affirmatively misleading. In Dunlap v. Dickson, 307 Or. 175, 180 n. 4, 765 P.2d 203 (1988), this court indicated that it would exercise its discretion to reach an issue presented to the Court of Appeals (1) when there was a close connection between the issues, and (2) to avoid unnecessary technicality when we may do so and doing so resolves issues fairly raised below. [5] Those conditions also are present here and militate for review. Although defendant's statement of its sixteenth assignment of error did not present a clear objection to the trial court's giving of the uniform jury instruction, defendant's briefs did disclose its intent to assert that error. More importantly, both the court's failure to give defendant's proposed instruction and its giving of the uniform jury instruction raised precisely the same legal issue: whether the trial court correctly instructed the jury on the use of evidence of harm to nonparties. Having accepted review of the decision of the Court of Appeals and having decided that defendant's proffered instructions were incomplete and thereby inaccurate, we think it important also to decide the accuracy of the instructions that the jury did receive. Turning to the merits of defendant's argument, we observe that, when this case was tried, neither Campbell nor Williams II had been decided. We therefore understand the reason for the trial court's failure to instruct the jury on the law regarding evidence of harm to nonparties. Nevertheless, we must acknowledge that omission and the fact that the trial court did, in giving the uniform jury instruction, permit the jury to consider evidence of harm to nonparties in assessing punitive damages. In giving the uniform jury instruction, the court informed the jury: To recover punitive damages, [plaintiff] must show by clear and convincing evidence that defendant Philip Morris has shown a reckless and outrageous indifference to a highly unreasonable risk of harm and has acted with a conscious indifference to the health, safety, and welfare of others.      Punitive damages, if any, shall be determined and awarded based on the following: (1) The likelihood at the time that serious harm would arise from the defendant's misconduct; (2) The degree of the defendant's awareness of that likelihood[.] Plaintiff contends that the jury would have understood from that instruction the fine distinction that the law makes; namely, that evidence of harm to others may be used only in the assessment of reprehensibility and not to impose direct punishment for harm to nonparties. Plaintiff asserts that the other general instructions that the court gave focused the jury's attention on damage to the named plaintiff and prevented a misunderstanding of the punitive damages instruction that the court gave. We do not agree. The jury could have understood the uniform jury instruction to permit it to use evidence of harm to others in arriving at its punitive damages verdict and, without an explicit statement of the impermissible use of that evidence, such as that included in UCJI 75.02B (Nov 2009), the instruction was incomplete and unclear. The trial court erred in giving the uniform instruction.