Back to Main Page / Back to List of Rules

Rule 272. Requisites (Dec1941)

TEXT

The charge shall be in writing, signed by the judge, and filed with the clerk, and shall be a part of the record of the cause. It shall be prepared after the evidence has been concluded and shall be submitted to the respective parties or their attorneys for inspection, and a reasonable time given them in which to examine and present objections thereto, which objections shall in every instance be presented to the court in writing before the charge is read to the jury, and all objections not so made and presented shall be considered as waived. When written objections have been so made and presented, if the court overrules same, he shall endorse his ruling thereon and sign the same officially, and when the same is so endorsed, it shall constitute a sufficient bill of exception to the ruling of the court thereon, and when so endorsed by the judge it shall be presumed, unless otherwise noted thereon, that the party making such objections presented the same at the proper time and excepted to the ruling thereon. The re­quirement that the objections to the court's charge shall be in writing will be sufficiently complied with if such objections are dictated to the court reporter in the presence of and with the consent of the court and opposing counsel, before the reading of the court's charge to the jury, and are subsequently transcribed and the court's ruling and official signature endorsed thereon and filed with the clerk in time to be included in the transcript. Failure of the court to give reasonable time to the parties or their attorneys for examination of the charge shall be reviewable upon appeal upon proper exception. The judge shall so frame his charge as to distinctly separate questions of law from questions of fact, and not therein comment on the weight of the evidence, and so as to instruct the jury as to the law arising on the facts, and shall only submit controverted questions of fact.

Amended by order of Sept. 20, 1941, eff. Dec. 31, 1941: The fourth sentence has been added, that is, the sentence which authorizes counsel to dictate his objections to the court reporter with the consent of the court and opposing counsel.