N.J. Model Civil Jury Charge 6.10

6.10 PROXIMATE CAUSE — GENERAL CHARGE (Approved

05/1998; Revised 11/2019)

NOTE TO JUDGE

The Committee has extensively reviewed the propriety of the prior

charges on proximate cause (most of which were prepared before

1984) in light of two significant recent developments. First, recent

decisions of the Supreme Court and the Appellate Division question

the use of particular language in certain types of negligence cases.

Conklin v. Hannoch Weisman, 145 N.J. 395, 417, 419 (1996); Camp

v. Jiffy Lube #114, 309 N.J. Super. 305 (App. Div. 1998). Those

decisions also emphasize that proximate cause should be carefully

defined for the jury and tailored to the facts of the particular case.

Second, recent research and literature on jurors’ comprehension of

instructions uniformly indicates that jurors do not understand the

technical language in most proximate cause charges. (Some studies

even indicate that jurors believe the charge instructs them to find the

“approximate cause”).

Accordingly, to contribute to the jury’s understanding of the causation

decision they must make in the most common proximate cause issues,

the Committee has prepared the following charges. The Committee

would welcome any suggestions from judges and attorneys relating to

modifications of these charges for greater clarity or other proximate

cause “scenarios” that should be addressed.

This charge was previously titled “Proximate Cause General Charge

to be Given in All Cases. ” In 2019, the title was changed to reflect

that that this charge is not applicable to every case. Where

appropriate, this charge may be tailored to a case’s particular facts.

If you find that [name of defendant or other party] was negligent, you must

find that [name of defendant or other party] negligence was a proximate cause of

the accident/incident/event before you can find that [name of defendant or other

party] was responsible for [name of plaintiff or other party]’s claimed

injury/loss/harm. It is the duty of [name of plaintiff or other party] to establish, by

the preponderance of evidence, that the negligence of [name of defendant or other

party] was a proximate cause of the accident/incident/event and of the

injury/loss/harm allegedly to have resulted from [name of defendant or other party]

negligence.

The basic question for you to resolve is whether [name of plaintiff or other

party]’s injury/loss/harm is so connected with the negligent actions or inactions of

[name of defendant or other party] that you decide it is reasonable, in accordance

with the instructions I will now give you, that [name of defendant or other party]

should be held wholly or partially1 responsible for the injury/loss/harm.

1 Omit “wholly or partially” where neither comparative fault ( N.J.S.A. 2A:15-5.1, et seq.) nor

apportionment of causal factors is involved in the case, e.g., Dafler v. Raymark Industries, 132

N.J. 96 (1992).