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Park v. Nichols

The trial court did not err in refusing to given the plaintiff's requested jury charge because the actual charge given covered all the principles of the requested charge.

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Seung C. Park appeals after a jury awarded $715,000 to Stacey Camacho’s estate on its claim for pain and suffering and $5,115,000 to Camacho’s surviving spouse on his claim for wrongful death.1 The claims were the result of an automobile accident in which Park, who was drunk, ran a red light and hit the car Camacho was driving, killing her and injuring her young son. Park pled guilty to a felony charge of homicide by vehicle and was in prison at the time of trial. Park admitted liability and the only issue at trial was the amount of damages. 1. In his first enumeration of error, Park claims that the trial court improperly allowed the issue of insurance to be reinjected into the case during voir dire. Park claims that the jury was qualified as to his automobile insurance carrier, Nationwide Mutual Fire Insurance Company, three times before counsel began their general voir dire questions and then for the fourth time by plaintiff’s counsel.

The record shows that the jurors were to be prequalified as to shareholders, officers, directors and employees of Nationwide, but not as to policy holders. But, as the trial court stated, it was not confirmed with the jury clerk whether that was done, “so we’re going to make sure it is done properly here.” Also, because sometimes there were jurors “who didn’t make it through the questionnaire,” the court wanted to make sure that the qualification was done properly. The trial court said that because it was a mutual insurance company, he would add policy holders to the list of those to be prequalified.

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