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Listen to this articleWhere a jury found only one of the defendants liable for a driving accident that resulted in a lower-leg amputation, the verdict should be upheld because the trial judge did not abuse his broad discretion in excluding the plaintiff’s proposed line of questioning during attorney-conducted voir dire.
“These appeals arise from a jury trial to determine liability for a driving accident that resulted in a lower-leg amputation for the plaintiff, Christopher Ciampa. The jury found only one of the defendants, Briana Durham (Durham), responsible for the plaintiff’s injuries; they did not impose liability on the other defendants. … On appeal, the plaintiff maintains that the trial judge improperly foreclosed his ability to question the jury venire on potential bias related to his central theory of liability. … We affirm. …
“The plaintiff asserts that, during attorney-conducted voir dire, the trial judge improperly foreclosed his questions designed to expose juror bias against his theory of liability. …
“During voir dire, the plaintiff’s counsel sought to ask a question about ‘responsibility’ for ‘waving or signaling’ to another driver. The judge interrupted, saying the question was ‘so close to the case’ that he did not want to know the jurors’ answers ‘before they hear the evidence.’ The plaintiff’s lawyer tried to rephrase the question, but the judge ultimately excluded it, saying it was ‘so fact-intensive, to ask the right question, it could lead to bias.’ Addressing the jury after the sidebar, the judge further explained his reasoning: ‘I’m trying to strike a balance. … We’re just determining if you can be fair and impartial jurors, and it’s not an opportunity to get into the facts of the case. And so I have determined that the concept of … I don’t know what the truck driver’s actions were. I wasn’t there. None of us were. I’m going to wait until you hear the evidence before you’re asked any questions about what it means, whether liability can attach, and that type of thing.’
“The trial judge’s nuanced assessment of the proposed voir dire questions was consistent with our law. As this court has recognized, ‘[i]n the few signaling cases that have been decided by the Massachusetts appellate courts, the courts have left for the jury the interpretation of a hand signal, the reasonable inferences that could be drawn from it, and the determination of the over-all questions of negligence and contributory negligence.’ Woods v. O’Neil, 54 Mass. App. Ct. 768, 772 (2002). … Although the Woods court was careful to note that most of the cited signaling cases predated the comparative negligence statute and did not address the defendant’s negligence, id., that distinction is not germane here; the teaching of Woods is that the jury is responsible for interpreting the hand signal and determining its legal relevance. The judge assiduously preserved that role here, limiting the plaintiff’s voir dire question to ensure the jurors would ‘wait until [they] hear the evidence before [they were] asked any questions about what it means,’ and ‘whether liability can attach.’
“Likening his question to those of a prosecutor asking prospective jurors hypothetical questions about their ability to apply ‘central legal concepts,’ the plaintiff maintains that the judge improperly blocked him from exploring whether prospective jurors were biased against his legal theory about signaling. The cases cited by the plaintiff are not particularly instructive. First, they stand only for the proposition that a judge may allow questions, not that a judge must allow them. … Second, critically, the questions in those cases previewed standard jury instructions on the use of circumstantial evidence, while the question here sought to determine whether potential jurors were sympathetic to the plaintiff’s legal theory. Third, the Supreme Judicial Court has recently held that a prosecutor’s question about the ‘CSI effect,’ which was framed specifically to the facts of the case, improperly sought to commit the jurors to be predisposed to the Commonwealth’s case. …
“… The judge did not abuse his broad discretion in excluding the plaintiff’s proposed line of questioning.”
Ciampa v. Durham, et al. (Lawyers Weekly No. 81-131-25) (11 pages) (Docket Nos. 24-P-872 and 24-P-948) (Sept. 2, 2025).
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