Draft Jury Instructions

Skill: Draft Proposed Jury Instructions for Title VII Retaliation, Ohio Whistleblower, and Implied Contract Claims

1. Subject-matter triage (only if applicable)

• Confirm the live claims, defenses, and any resolved issues from prior rulings before drafting anything.
• Draft for the defendant’s trial posture, not the pleadings posture; instructions must track what the jury will actually decide.
• If multiple claims remain, separate them cleanly and identify whether any claim requires a distinct causation, damages, or burden-of-proof formulation.
• If the court has issued a standing order or model-format requirement, conform to it unless a tailored deviation is necessary and supported.
• Treat the cover memo and verdict form as supporting deliverables; the instructions are the primary work product.

2. Failure modes the skill is correcting

• Tracking pattern language mechanically without narrowing it to the surviving issues and prior rulings.
• Drafting instructions that blur liability, causation, and damages into a single undifferentiated charge.
• Omitting the special verdict path that tells the jury which findings are necessary and when later questions become reachable.
• Failing to distinguish statutory retaliation, whistleblower, and implied-contract theories by their separate elements and remedies.
• Writing a perfunctory cover memo instead of a legal memo that identifies disputed language, the governing authorities, and the reasons for the proposed wording.
• Using conclusory statements about the law without naming the controlling authority that supports the instruction.
• Including remedial concepts in the liability charge that belong only in a damages or post-liability instruction.

3. Legal frameworks / domain conventions that apply

• Start from the applicable pattern instructions, then modify them only to match the claims, defenses, and evidentiary record remaining in the case.
• For Title VII retaliation, identify protected activity, employer knowledge, materially adverse action, and the required causal link under the governing standard.
• Protected activity should reflect the reasonable good-faith belief framework: the employee may be protected even if the complained-of conduct ultimately was not unlawful, so long as the belief was objectively reasonable.
• For retaliation causation, use the causation standard that controls the claim, and do not mix standards from other statutes or claim types.
• For Ohio whistleblower claims, track the statute’s own elements, notice requirements, and causation language as applied to the surviving theory.
• For implied contract claims based on handbook or policy language, instruct the jury to decide whether the language created a binding promise and whether the employer complied with any promised procedure.
• Damages must be tied to the specific theory being charged; do not collapse contract damages into statutory or tort damages.
• After-acquired evidence, if relevant at all, is remedial; do not inject it into the liability instruction unless the court has directed a separate issue.
• Statutory caps and other limitation rules are for the court or the remedy phase, not for disclosure as a jury ceiling unless the governing law requires it.
• Every legal proposition relied on should be anchored to controlling authority by name and section, rule, or leading case.

4. Analytical scaffolds

• Identify each surviving claim and each distinct element the jury must find.
• For each claim, ask: what issue is genuinely disputed, what issue is already fixed, and what language best guides a lay jury without overstating the law?
• Draft one instruction per claim or per discrete doctrine, using plain language with precise legal content.
• Pair each instruction with a corresponding verdict-form question so the jury’s answers move logically from liability to any causation or damages question.
• Use sequential verdict questions so later questions are reached only if earlier ones are answered in the required way.
• If a claim has alternative theories or sub-issues, enumerate them first and then draft each instruction and verdict question against the full set rather than blending them.
• In the cover memo, explain each disputed instruction choice, identify the competing formulations, and state why the proposed wording is the better legal fit.
• Cite the rule, statute, regulation, or leading case for every important proposition in the instruction package.
• Check the charge for internal consistency: defined terms should be used the same way throughout, and burden language should not shift between claims.

5. Vertical / structural / temporal relationships (only if applicable)

• Organize the charge so the jury can move from general instructions to claim-specific instructions, then to verdict questions, then to damages only if reached.
• Keep liability and remedy temporally distinct: first decide whether liability exists, then decide the consequences the law permits.
• If one claim depends on a factual predicate that overlaps another claim, preserve that relationship in the verdict form rather than assuming the jury will infer it.
• Where prior rulings have removed certain issues from the case, do not resurrect them in the instructions, even indirectly.
• If one theory is narrower than another, draft it narrowly; do not let broad language swallow the claim-specific elements.

6. Output structure conventions

• Produce the proposed jury instructions as a standalone instruction set with numbered instructions and clear headings.
• Pair each instruction with a matching special verdict form question or subgroup of questions.
• Keep the verdict form sequenced and answer-driven, using yes/no questions and damages blanks only where the theory allows them.
• Draft the cover memo as a substantive legal memorandum organized by instruction number or topic, with the dispute, the governing authority, and the proposed resolution.
• Make the memo useful to the court: identify where the parties are likely to disagree, and state the legal basis for the defendant’s proposal concisely.
• Ensure the final files are named exactly proposed-jury-instructions.docx and instruction-cover-memo.docx.
• Before finishing, confirm that the instruction file is complete and operative, and that the memo exists as a separate non-empty document.