Court Opinion

ID: 9747268
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 15:07:54.243482+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:22.070934
License: Public Domain

CLIFFORD, J.,
dissenting.
When in a querulous mood, our colleagues at the trial bench sometimes grumble that while trial judges devote their energies to the pursuit of justice, appellate judges spend their time hunched over the record, pawing through it in an unrelenting search for error. One might find support for that dyspeptic observation in today’s decision to remand this case for a new trial, given the fact that the jurors rendered a verdict after a charge that, although not squeaky clean, nevertheless fairly put the single critical issue to them in simple, comprehensible terms: was defendants’ product as designed, manufactured, or sold defective in that it was not reasonably safe for its intended or reasonably foreseeable uses? Answer: No.
That question and answer should have been the end of the case. In theory, there was no need for the jury to address questions two, three, and four. We have seen many other jury verdict forms in product-liability failure-to-warn cases that state that if the jury finds no defect, it should cease deliberations and return a verdict for defendant. Viewed in that way, the jury’s answers to questions two through four become irrelevant, and the sole focus of appellate inquiry becomes whether a reasonable jury could have concluded that the product was not defective.
*392Whatever shortcomings infect the current Model Civil Jury Charge, no one can be confused by the charge’s definition of “defective” as “not reasonably safe for its intended or reasonably foreseeable uses.” That is plain English, and I am willing to assume that the jury understood it, understood the evidence, understood what the plaintiff had done with the machine, and understood how plaintiff had been injured. To my way of thinking we go at the problem backwards if we surmise that the jury’s answer to interrogatory number three informed, and rendered unacceptable, its answer to interrogatory number one.
With remarkable precision and impeccable clarity the Court lays out the principles of law that henceforth will govern this kind of case. The Court has come up with a better jury charge than the Model Charge, and I enthusiastically endorse the new, improved version. However, I do not perceive that the jury instructions in this case were so wide of the mark as to require yet another court event. The first trial was fair, albeit not pristine, and the result was hardly an unjust one.
I would reverse and remand to the Law Division for entry there of a judgment based on the jury’s verdict.
For reversal and remandment — Chief Justice WILENTZ and Justices HANDLER, POLLOCK, O'HERN, GARIBALDI and STEIN — 6.
Dissenting — Justice CLIFFORD — 1.