While researching jury instructions today, I came across this passage:
The fact that the language was borrowed from the reasoning of a written opinion does not uphold the charge. Isolated from its context, or sought to be translated from mere discussion into substantive law, opinion language is apt to become invested with a quality wholly inappropriate for use in instructions. Taylor v. Insurance Company of North America, 263 So.2d 749 (Miss.1972). The mere fact that certain language has been used by a judge in rendering an opinion is not of itself sufficient to justify the use of the same language by a trial court in its instruction to the jury. News Leader Co. v. Kocen, 173 Va. 95, 3 S.E.2d 385 (1939).
Source: Trapani v. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co., 424 So. 2d 449, 451–52 (La. App. 5 Cir. 1982).
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