## Facts

- John Baugh fell from a five-foot aluminum A-frame ladder manufactured by Cuprum S.A. de C.V. and suffered a severe traumatic brain injury.
- There were no eyewitnesses, and Baugh’s injuries prevented him from testifying about how the fall occurred.
- Through his wife acting on his behalf, Baugh sued Cuprum in federal court alleging design-defect and negligence theories.
- Cuprum brought a new “exemplar” ladder, represented as built to the same specifications as the accident ladder, and used it in court as a demonstrative aid for expert testimony.
- The exemplar ladder was labeled for demonstrative purposes, was not the accident ladder, and the district court permitted its use during testimony but did not admit it into evidence.
- During deliberations, the jury requested the exemplar ladder; over Baugh’s objection, the district court ultimately sent it into the jury room with instructions allowing jurors to examine it but not reconstruct the accident.
- The jury returned a defense verdict shortly after receiving the ladder in the jury room, and Baugh appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court abused its discretion by allowing jurors, during deliberations, to take into the jury room and manipulate a demonstrative exemplar ladder that was never admitted into evidence.
2. Whether sending the non-admitted demonstrative exhibit to the jury room was harmless error.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit reversed and remanded for a new trial.
- The court held it was an abuse of discretion to allow the jury to use a demonstrative ladder in the jury room when it had not been admitted into evidence.
- The court held the error was not harmless because allowing jurors to handle a non-admitted physical exhibit created a significant risk of influencing the verdict.

## Legal Principles

- Items not admitted into evidence generally should not be provided to jurors for use during deliberations.
- Demonstrative aids are meant to illustrate testimony in open court; giving them to jurors during deliberations risks converting them into substantive proof outside adversarial testing.
- When a court and parties treat an object as demonstrative-only throughout trial, allowing it into the jury room after the close of evidence can unfairly deny the opposing party a meaningful opportunity to challenge it as evidence.
- Harmless-error review turns on whether the irregularity had a substantial likelihood of affecting the verdict; where jurors can privately manipulate a non-admitted object, courts will not assume the error had no effect.

## Conclusion

The Seventh Circuit ordered a new trial because the district court permitted jurors to examine in the jury room a demonstrative exemplar ladder that had never been admitted into evidence, a discretionary error that carried a significant risk of affecting the verdict and therefore was not harmless.


Baugh v. Cuprum S.A. de C.V., 730 F.3d 701 (7th Cir. 2013)