AK · jury_instructions
Alaska Civil Pattern Jury Instruction 8.02
Health Care Provider Malpractice - Negligence Defined
I will now define negligence for you. Negligence is the failure to meet the standard of care. The standard of care is the degree of knowledge or skill possessed or the degree of care ordinarily exercised under the circumstances, at the time of the act complained of, by health care providers in the field or specialty in which the defendant was practicing.
You must determine the standard of care only on the basis of opinions offered by [insert names of experts], who have testified as expert witnesses on the standard of care. If you are not able to decide the standard of care based on the expert testimony, you must return a verdict for the defendant.
If you are able to decide the standard of care based on the expert testimony, you must then determine whether the defendant met the standard of care. The defendant failed to meet the standard of care if [he] [she] either lacked the required degree of knowledge or skill, or failed to exercise the required degree of care. You must make this decision only on the basis of opinions offered by [insert names of experts] who have testified as experts on whether the defendant met the standard of care.
The mere fact that the plaintiff was harmed does not mean the defendant was negligent.
If you do not find that the defendant was negligent, you must return a verdict for the defendant. If you do find that the defendant was negligent, you must also decide whether that negligence was the legal cause of the plaintiff’s harm.
History
Alaska Civil Pattern Jury Instructions 8.02, dated (Rev. 2002). Prepared by the Alaska Civil Pattern Jury Instructions Committee; published by the Alaska Court System. The Alaska Court System states that these instructions "have not been approved or promulgated by any court or the Alaska Bar Association."
Provenance
- Source
- courts.alaska.gov
- Retrieved
- 2026-09-24
- Edition
- 2026-09-24
- Content hash
7eb9b67b2eee5c8a54071eeccb6b88aa81a02bbcaa17b6647acc43750da74ab2
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