The state Superior Court has ordered a new trial in a products liability case because a trial judge decided against re-charging jurors when they asked questions about their jury instructions.
Before the jury in Powers v. Heil Environmental Industries returned a defense verdict clearing a manufacturer of a garbage-truck loading mechanism of liability for a sanitation worker’s death, the jury had asked to be reinstructed on the “‘part of the judge’s charge that describes what a defect from the plaintiff’s point of view and what misuse means from defendant’s point of view’” and “‘the part of [the] charge that said what plaintiff’s proof was that makes defendant liable and the part that describes defendant’s proof that relieves liability,’” according to the July 12 unpublished opinion by Pennsylvania Superior Court Judge Anne E. Lazarus.
