The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has clarified the proper procedure for preserving a jury instruction challenge for appeal, while also noting that there’s one sure-fire way to waive such a challenge: failing to object at trial when given the chance.

In Jones v. Ott, the high court ruled 4-3 that plaintiff Helen Jones waived her challenge to the trial judge’s failure to charge the jury on negligence per se in her motor vehicle accident case because her attorney explicitly declined to object at the time the charge was made, despite the judge’s explicit invitation to do so.

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