Court Opinion

ID: 9727427
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:36:25.275684+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:37.608140
License: Public Domain

O’Sullivan, J.
(dissenting). Just one week ago we released an opinion wherein we reiterated a principle to which we have always adhered. “Nothing in our law is more elementary,” we said, “than that the trier is the final judge of the credibility of witnesses and of the weight to be accorded their testimony.” Morgan v. Hill, 139 Conn. 159, 161, 90 A.2d 641. The majority opinion, it seems to me, undermines this principle.
My associates conclude that the indisputable facts, disclosed by the weather reports, establish the inaccuracy of any testimony that the walk in question had been covered with ice for three or four days. I am in accord with that conclusion. I disagree, however, with the assertion that there was no evidence of the length of time during which the walk was icy. When a witness testifies that a defective *178condition bad existed for a specified number of days, the jury are not bound to accept or reject the testimony in toto. If circumstances warrant, they may conclude that the witness is mistaken only as to the length of time stated. If deemed proper, they may use his testimony to find that the condition had existed for a lesser time. .
As applied to this case, these principles would permit the jury to accept the testimony of the plaintiff’s daughter that the walk was icy and to discount to one day the length of time it had been in that condition. With such evidence, we cannot hold, as a matter of law, that the city did not have constructive notice of the icy walk for a sufficiently long time before the accident to have remedied it through the use of reasonable care.
In this opinion Inglis, J., concurred.