Brown v. Cartwright, 203 Conn.App. 490

Plaintiff Ryan K. Brown sued dealer and manufacturer under product‑liability statutes after the left front wheel of his 2013 Hyundai Elantra fractured, causing a single‑car crash and injuries.
Jury trial ran June 26–July 3, 2019; court instructed jurors not to begin deliberations until they had all exhibits, verdict form, and interrogatories.
After jury retired, defendants’ exhibits were delivered promptly but plaintiff’s exhibits remained in the courtroom and were delivered later (plaintiff’s counsel testified delivery about 4:35 p.m.).
Jury returned a verdict for defendants and the verdict was read at about 4:47 p.m.; plaintiff asserted the jury had only ~10 minutes with his thousands of pages of exhibits before rendering the verdict.
Plaintiff moved to set aside the verdict alleging (1) evidentiary impropriety/delayed delivery of exhibits, (2) juror misconduct/failure to follow instructions, and (3) prejudice from defense counsel reading or relying on documents not in evidence; the trial court denied the motion and the Appellate Court affirmed.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Timely delivery of plaintiff's exhibits to jury (evidentiary impropriety)	Delay deprived Brown of a fair opportunity to have all exhibits before deliberations; trial court failed to ensure exhibits accompanied jury.	Jury had all exhibits before returning verdict; no proof jury began deliberating earlier; any delay was harmless/speculative.	No error—plaintiff showed no evidence jury began deliberations before receiving exhibits and no prejudice was shown.
Juror misconduct / failure to follow instruction to consider all evidence	Short interval between receipt of exhibits and verdict proves jurors did not follow instruction and engaged in misconduct.	No direct evidence the jury deliberated prematurely or failed to consider evidence; plaintiff failed to preserve issue by not objecting before verdict was read.	Waived/unpreserved—plaintiff did not raise the issue on the record before verdict reading; cannot infer misconduct from deliberation length alone.
Defense counsel reading from documents not in evidence / prejudice	Defense counsel improperly read or relied on out‑of‑evidence documents during cross‑examination and voir dire, prejudicing jury.	Trial court gave curative instruction; later jury charge repeated instruction; plaintiff accepted the instruction and did not object to the charge.	Waived—plaintiff requested and accepted curative instruction and later approved the jury charge, so appellate review is barred.

Kortner v. Martise, 312 Conn. 1 (Conn. 2014) (court reversed where court clerk answered juror question about an exhibit not in evidence, depriving parties and judge of chance to correct error)
Forrestt v. Koch, 122 Conn. App. 99 (App. Ct. 2010) (length of deliberation alone cannot prove verdict was affected by improper influences; short deliberation may reflect weak case)
Sovereign Bank v. Licata, 116 Conn. App. 483 (App. Ct. 2009) (standard of review for denial of motion to set aside verdict: abuse of discretion)
Yeske v. Avon Old Farms School, Inc., 1 Conn. App. 195 (App. Ct. 1984) (extreme misconduct by counsel may be incurable by instruction)
Fonck v. Stratford, 24 Conn. App. 1 (App. Ct. 1991) (curative instructions normally cure prejudice from improper argument)