NC · jury_instructions
N.C.P.I.—Motor Vehicle 109.22
DEFENDANT'S PERSONAL INJURY DAMAGES (COUNTERCLAIM)-FINAL MANDATE (PER DIEM ARGUMENT BY COUNSEL).
(Use this instruction in place of 109.20 when a per
diem argument has been made.)
I instruct you that your findings on this (state number) issue must
be based on the evidence and the rules of law I have given you with
respect to the measure of damages. You are not required to accept the
amount of damages suggested by the parties or their attorneys.
An attorney is allowed to suggest an amount of damages and
therefore can suggest an amount for each (specify unit(s) of time, e.g.,
day, hour or minute) of physical pain or mental suffering. However, I
instruct you that there is no fixed mathematical formula for computing
damages for physical pain or mental suffering. Furthermore, an
attorney's argument is not evidence but is merely an approach to the
damage issue which you may consider but need not adopt.1
Your award must be fair and just. You should remember that you
are not seeking to punish either party, and you are not awarding or
withholding anything on the basis of sympathy or pity.
Finally, as to this (state number) issue on which the defendant has
the burden of proof, if you find by the greater weight of the evidence the
amount of actual damages proximately caused by the negligence of the
defendant, then it would be your duty to write that amount in the blank
space provided.
If, on the other hand, you fail to so find, then it would be your duty
to write a nominal sum such as "One Dollar" in the blank space provided.
History
N.C.P.I.—Motor Vehicle 109.22 (May 2000). Prepared by the North Carolina Conference of Superior Court Judges' Committee on Pattern Jury Instructions, assisted by the UNC School of Government; published by the School of Government.
Provenance
- Source
- sog.unc.edu
- Retrieved
- 2026-09-25
- Edition
- 2026-09-24
- Content hash
c79d435f0e1e533ec0f4060d66120ffd57162d015579f47df6994293f7c6c1f9
The link goes to the issuing authority’s own document — the one we read to produce this record. Where a source publishes whole titles rather than sections, your browser may need a moment to jump to the provision.
Unofficial copy of government-published law, reproduced from official sources with full provenance. Not an official publication; verify against official sources before relying on it in a filing. Records in the 'guidance' corpus, and only that corpus, are sub-regulatory (interpretive guidelines, survey procedures) and are not binding law. Validity bounds follow each jurisdiction's declared temporalBasis.