DE · jury_instructions
Del. P.J.I. Civ. § 21.5
Enhanced Injury
PROXIMATE CAUSE AND ENHANCED INJURIES
A party’s negligence, by itself, is not enough to impose legal responsibility on
that party. Something more is needed: the party’s negligence must be shown by a
preponderance of the evidence to be a proximate cause of the injury.
Proximate cause is a cause that directly produces the harm, and but for which
the harm would not have occurred. A proximate cause brings about, or helps to bring
about, the injury, and it must have been necessary to the result.
[Plaintiff’s name] claims that [he/she] suffered enhanced injuries as a result of
[describe alleged defective design]. Enhanced injuries are injuries suffered over and
above those that would have resulted had the product been properly designed. In
other words, an enhanced injury is the additional injury suffered, if any, as a result
of the defective design. To prove that [describe alleged defective design]
proximately caused [him/her] to suffer enhanced injuries, [plaintiff’s name] must
establish:
(1) the injuries that would have occurred if the product had been properly
designed; and
(2) the additional injury inflicted because of the defective design.
Provenance
- Source
- courts.delaware.gov
- Retrieved
- 2026-09-23
- Edition
- civ-2025-10-22
- Content hash
816873238baaab874058dc7633b367e521fd1857360395126279e4993adde31b
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