Gardensensor, Inc v. Stanley Black & Decker, Inc

Filing 188

PRELIMINARY JURY INSTRUCTIONS. Signed by Judge Nathanael Cousins on 10/24/2014. (lmh, COURT STAFF) (Filed on 10/24/2014)

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

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NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

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SAN FRANCISCO DIVISION

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12 GARDENSENSOR, INC., a Delaware
Corporation, formerly known as
13 PLANTSENSE, INC., a Delaware
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Corporation,

Case No. 12-cv-03922 NC
PRELIMINARY JURY
INSTRUCTIONS

Plaintiff,

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v.

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BLACK & DECKER (U.S.), INC., a

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Defendant.
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20 I.

Introduction

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Ladies and gentlemen: You are now the jury in this case. It is my duty to instruct you

22 on the law.
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These instructions are preliminary instructions to help you understand the principles

24 that apply to civil trials and to help you understand the evidence as you listen to it. You
25 will be allowed to keep this set throughout the trial to which to refer. This set of
26 instructions is not to be taken home and must remain in the jury room when you leave in the
27 evenings. At the end of the trial, I will give you a final set of instructions. It is the final set
28 of instructions which will govern your deliberations.
Case No. 12-cv-03922 NC
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INSTRUCTIONS

You must not infer from these instructions or from anything I may say or do as

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2 indicating that I have an opinion regarding the evidence or what your verdict should be.
It is your duty to find the facts from all the evidence in the case. To those facts you

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4 will apply the law as I give it to you. You must follow the law as I give it to you whether
5 you agree with it or not. And you must not be influenced by any personal likes or dislikes,
6 opinions, prejudices, or sympathy. That means that you must decide the case solely on the
7 evidence before you. You will recall that you took an oath to do so.
In following my instructions, you must follow all of them and not single out some and

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9 ignore others; they are all important.
10 II.

Summary of the Claims and Defenses in this Case

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To help you follow the evidence, I will give you a brief summary of the positions of

12 the parties:
This case involves an alleged breach of contract. The plaintiff in this case is a

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14 company called GARDENSENSOR, Inc. and is also known as “PLANTSENSE.” The
15 defendant is BLACK & DECKER (U.S.), Inc. also called, for short, “BLACK &
16 DECKER.” The parties entered into a written contract concerning a product called
17 “PLANTSMART.” The PlantSmart product is a gardening tool that takes soil, water and
18 light readings and provides users with information about their home plants and garden
19 plants through the Internet. Pursuant to the parties’ contract, the PlantSmart product was
20 sold by Black & Decker under the Black & Decker brand name. In this lawsuit, PlantSense
21 claims that Black & Decker breached the parties’ contract causing monetary damages to
22 PlantSense. PlantSense has the burden of proving its breach of contract claim by a
23 preponderance of the evidence, and I will instruct what that means.
Black & Decker denies that it breached the contract and denies that PlantSense

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25 incurred any monetary loss. In addition, Black & Decker asserts various affirmative
26 defenses. Black & Decker has the burden of proof on these affirmative defenses.
27 PlantSense denies Black & Decker’s affirmative defenses.
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Case No. 12-cv-03922 NC
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1 III. Burden of Proof
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When a party has the burden of proof on any claim or affirmative defense by a

3 preponderance of the evidence, it means you must be persuaded by the evidence that the
4 claim or affirmative defense is more probably true than not true.
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You should base your decision on all of the evidence, regardless of which party

6 presented it.
7 IV. Evidence
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1.

Evidence You May Consider

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The evidence you are to consider in deciding what the facts are consists of:

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(1) the sworn testimony of any witness;

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(2) the exhibits which are received into evidence; and

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(3) any facts to which the lawyers have agreed.

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2.

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In reaching your verdict, you may consider only the testimony and exhibits received

Things You May Not Consider

15 into evidence. Certain things are not evidence, and you may not consider them in deciding
16 what the facts are. I will list them for you:
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(1) Arguments and statements by lawyers are not evidence. The lawyers are not

18 witnesses. What they have said in their opening statements, closing arguments, and at other
19 times is intended to help you interpret the evidence, but it is not evidence. If the facts as
20 you remember them differ from the way the lawyers have stated them, your memory of
21 them controls.
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(2) Questions and objections by lawyers are not evidence. Attorneys have a duty to

23 their clients to object when they believe a question is improper under the rules of evidence.
24 You should not be influenced by the objection or by the court’s ruling on it.
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(3) Testimony that has been excluded or stricken, or that you have been instructed to

26 disregard, is not evidence and must not be considered. In addition sometimes testimony and
27 exhibits are received only for a limited purpose; when I give a limiting instruction, you
28 must follow it.
Case No. 12-cv-03922 NC
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(4) Anything you may have seen or heard when the court was not in session is not

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2 evidence. You are to decide the case solely on the evidence received at the trial.
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3.

Types of Evidence

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Evidence may be direct or circumstantial. Direct evidence is direct proof of a fact,

5 such as testimony by a witness about what that witness personally saw or heard or did.
6 Circumstantial evidence is proof of one or more facts from which you could find another
7 fact. You should consider both kinds of evidence. The law makes no distinction between
8 the weight to be given to either direct or circumstantial evidence. It is for you to decide
9 how much weight to give to any evidence.
By way of example, if you wake up in the morning and see that the sidewalk is wet,

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11 you may find from that fact that it rained during the night. However, other evidence, such
12 as a turned on garden hose, may provide a different explanation for the presence of water on
13 the sidewalk. Therefore, before you decide that a fact has been proved by circumstantial
14 evidence, you must consider all the evidence in the light of reason, experience, and common
15 sense.
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4.

Evidence for a Limited Purpose

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Some evidence may be admitted for a limited purpose only.

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When I instruct you that an item of evidence has been admitted for a limited purpose,

19 you must consider it only for that limited purpose and for no other.
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5.

The Court’s Ruling on Objections

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There are rules of evidence that control what can be received into evidence. When a

22 lawyer asks a question or offers an exhibit into evidence and a lawyer on the other side
23 thinks that it is not permitted by the rules of evidence, that lawyer may object. If I overrule
24 the objection, the question may be answered or the exhibit received. If I sustain the
25 objection, the question cannot be answered, and the exhibit cannot be received. Whenever I
26 sustain an objection to a question, you must ignore the question and must not guess what the
27 answer might have been.
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Sometimes I may order that evidence be stricken from the record and that you
Case No. 12-cv-03922 NC
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INSTRUCTIONS

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1 disregard or ignore the evidence. That means that when you are deciding the case, you
2 must not consider the evidence that I told you to disregard.
3 V.

Witnesses

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1.

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In deciding the facts in this case, you may have to decide which testimony to believe

Evaluation of Witness Testimony

6 and which testimony not to believe. You may believe everything a witness says, or part of
7 it, or none of it. Proof of a fact does not necessarily depend on the number of witnesses
8 who testify about it.
In considering the testimony of any witness, you may take into account:

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(1) the opportunity and ability of the witness to see or hear or know the things

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11 testified to;
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(2) the witness’s memory;

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(3) the witness’s manner while testifying;

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(4) the witness’s interest in the outcome of the case and any bias or prejudice;

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(5) whether other evidence contradicted the witness’s testimony;

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(6) the reasonableness of the witness’s testimony in light of all the evidence; and

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(7) any other factors that bear on believability.

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The weight of the evidence as to a fact does not necessarily depend on the number of

19 witnesses who testify about it.
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2.

Expert Witnesses

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Some witnesses, because of education or experience, are permitted to state opinions

22 and the reasons for those opinions.
Opinion testimony should be judged just like any other testimony. You may accept it

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24 or reject it, and give it as much weight as you think it deserves, considering the witness’s
25 education and experience, the reasons given for the opinion, and all the other evidence in
26 the case.
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Case No. 12-cv-03922 NC
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1 VI. Conduct of the Jury
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Prohibitions on Your Activities

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I will now say a few words about your conduct as jurors.

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First, keep an open mind throughout the trial, and do not decide what the verdict

5 should be until you and your fellow jurors have completed your deliberations at the end of
6 the case.
Second, because you must decide this case based only on the evidence received in the

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8 case and on my instructions as to the law that applies, you must not be exposed to any other
9 information about the case or to the issues it involves during the course of your jury duty.
10 Thus, until the end of the case or unless I tell you otherwise:
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Do not communicate with anyone in any way and do not let anyone else communicate

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with you in any way about the merits of the case or anything to do with it. This

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includes discussing the case in person, in writing, by phone or electronic means, via

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e-mail, text messaging, or any Internet chat room, blog, Web site or other feature.

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This applies to communicating with your fellow jurors until I give you the case for

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deliberation, and it applies to communicating with everyone else including your

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family members, your employer, the media or press, and the people involved in the

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trial, although you may notify your family and your employer that you have been

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seated as a juror in the case. But, if you are asked or approached in any way about

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your jury service or anything about this case, you must respond that you have been

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ordered not to discuss the matter and to report the contact to the court.

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Because you will receive all the evidence and legal instruction you properly may

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consider to return a verdict: do not read, watch, or listen to any news or media

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accounts or commentary about the case or anything to do with it; do not do any

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research, such as consulting dictionaries, searching the Internet or using other

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reference materials; and do not make any investigation or in any other way try to

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learn about the case on your own.

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Case No. 12-cv-03922 NC
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INSTRUCTIONS

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The law requires these restrictions to ensure the parties have a fair trial based on the

2 same evidence that each party has had an opportunity to address. A juror who violates these
3 restrictions jeopardizes the fairness of these proceedings, and a mistrial could result that
4 would require the entire trial process to start over. If any juror is exposed to any outside
5 information, please notify the court immediately.
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2.

Taking Notes

During deliberations, you will have to make your decision based on what you recall

8 of the evidence. You will not have a transcript of the trial. I urge you to pay close attention
9 to the testimony as it is given.
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If at any time you cannot hear or see the testimony, evidence, questions or arguments,

11 let me know so that I can correct the problem.
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If you wish, you may take notes to help you remember the evidence. If you do take

13 notes, please keep them to yourself until you and your fellow jurors go to the jury room to
14 decide the case. Do not let note-taking distract you. When you leave, your notes should be
15 left in the jury room. No one will read your notes. They will be destroyed at the
16 conclusion of the case.
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Whether or not you take notes, you should rely on your own memory of the evidence.

18 Notes are only to assist your memory. You should not be overly influenced by your notes
19 or those of your fellow jurors.
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3.

Questions to Witnesses

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You will be allowed to propose written questions to witnesses after the lawyers have

22 completed their questioning of each witness. You may propose questions in order to clarify
23 the testimony, but you are not to express any opinion about the testimony or argue with a
24 witness. If you propose any questions, remember that your role is that of a neutral fact
25 finder, not an advocate.
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Before I excuse each witness, I will offer you the opportunity to write out a question

27 on a form provided by the court. Do not sign the question. I will review the question with
28 the attorneys to determine if it is legally proper.
Case No. 12-cv-03922 NC
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INSTRUCTIONS

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There are some proposed questions that I will not permit, or will not ask in the

2 wording submitted by the juror. This might happen either due to the rules of evidence or
3 other legal reasons, or because the question is expected to be answered later in the case. If I
4 do not ask a proposed question, or if I rephrase it, do not speculate as to the reasons. Do not
5 give undue weight to questions you or other jurors propose. You should evaluate the
6 answers to those questions in the same manner you evaluate all of the other evidence.
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By giving you the opportunity to propose questions, I am not requesting or suggesting

8 that you do so. It will often be the case that a lawyer has not asked a question because it is
9 legally objectionable or because a later witness may be addressing that subject.
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4.

Bench Conferences and Recesses

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From time to time during the trial, it may become necessary for me to talk with the

12 attorneys out of the hearing of the jury, either by having a conference at the bench when the
13 jury is present in the courtroom, or by calling a recess. Please understand that while you are
14 waiting, we are working. The purpose of these conferences is not to keep relevant
15 information from you, but to decide how certain evidence is to be treated under the rules of
16 evidence and to avoid confusion and error.
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Of course, we will do what we can to keep the number and length of these

18 conferences to a minimum. I may not always grant an attorney’s request for a conference.
19 Do not consider my granting or denying a request for a conference as any indication of my
20 opinion of the case or of what your verdict should be.
21 VII. Trial
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Trials proceed in the following way: First, each side may make an opening statement.

23 An opening statement is not evidence. It is simply an outline to help you understand what
24 that party expects the evidence will show. A party is not required to make an opening
25 statement.
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PlantSense will then present evidence, and counsel for Black & Decker may cross-

27 examine. Then Black & Decker may present evidence, and counsel for PlantSense may
28 cross-examine.
Case No. 12-cv-03922 NC
PRELIMINARY JURY
INSTRUCTIONS

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1

After the evid
dence has been presented, I will in
b
nstruct you on the law that applie to
u
w
es

torneys will make closi argume
l
ing
ents.
2 the case and the att

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After that, yo will go to the jury ro
ou
o
oom to deli
iberate on y
your verdict
t.

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IT IS SO OR
T
RDERED.

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Date: Octobe 24, 2014
er

____
__________
__________
_____
Nath
hanael M. C
Cousins
Unit States M
ted
Magistrate J
Judge

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Case No. 12-cv-0392 NC
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