Court Opinion

ID: 9642917
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 18:12:21.778497+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:54.012195
License: Public Domain

*663Murphy, J.
(dissenting). While it is true that in passing upon a trial court’s action denying a motion to set aside a verdict or a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, the evidence must be viewed in the light most favorable to the support of the verdict and that the verdict must stand if on all of the evidence reasonable persons could reasonably arrive at such a verdict, it is also the duty of the court to set the verdict aside when it is apparent from physical facts or other evidence compelling belief that the jury were swayed by improper motives. Joanis v. Engstrom, 135 Conn. 248, 251, 63 A.2d 151; Howe v. Raymond, 74 Conn. 68, 71, 49 A. 854. The verdict in this ease was manifestly against the evidence.
The trial court did not file a memorandum of decision on its action denying the motions. This is unfortunate, because a memorandum in a case such as this would have disclosed the rationale of the trial court’s decision and would have been very helpful to this court in reviewing it. See Butler v. Steak, 146 Conn. 114, 119, 148 A.2d 246; Fairbanks v. State, 143 Conn. 653, 660, 124 A.2d 893.
There was no evidence that the defendants’ vehicle swerved from its course or that the plaintiff was struck by any part of the tractor or trailer before the wheel ran over him. A very strained attempt is made to draw an inference from the presence of so-called brush marks at the lower right front corner of the trailer that this portion of the vehicle had struck him. The brush marks were reddish-brown smears on the two ridges of the bracket and light located at that corner. Toxicological examination of the light, the bracket and the smears showed that they were not bloodstains as suspected by the police. Similar smears from the *664tread of the outer tire of the right rear wheel were definitely found to contain human blood. To have been able to draw the inference, the jury must have had facts from which the inference could reasonably and logically be drawn. Bruce v. McElhannon, 141 Conn. 44, 48, 103 A.2d 335. As there were no facts in this case from which the inference could have been drawn, the jury were permitted to speculate and guess. A disinterested witness produced by the plaintiff testified that she saw him bracing himself against the building housing Sullivan’s Grill and that he walked unsteadily to the curb, started out into traffic, unsteadily backed up as cars approached, and leaned against the fender of a parked ear. The truck then went by and the witness next saw Kerrigan lying in the road. Another disinterested witness saw Kerrigan shake back and forth, grasp for the door handle of a parked car and then fall backwards under the rear wheel of the trailer.
Even if we assume, under the rule of Horvath v. Tontini, 126 Conn. 462, 464, 11 A.2d 846, and Goodman v. Norwalk Jewish Center, Inc., 145 Conn. 146, 154, 139 A.2d 812, stated in the majority opinion, that there was ground for a reasonable difference of opinion among open-minded jurors as to whether the plaintiff’s injuries were sustained in the maimer described by the witnesses or were sustained, as the plaintiff claims, as he stood at the edge of the concrete lane while the truck approached bfm from the point where he first saw it, 200 feet away, and struck him, he was nevertheless guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law. Lutzen v. Henry Jenkins Transportation Co., 133 Conn. 669, 673, 54 A.2d 267 (dissenting opinion). He was well aware of the danger in crossing Post Road traffic. A *665person standing close to the edge of a heavily traveled highway is bound to exercise a degree of care commensurate with prevailing conditions and has no right to calculate close chances of avoiding injury and throw the risk of failure on the other party. Gipstein v. Kirshenbaum, 118 Conn. 681, 687, 174 A. 261; Sistare v. Connecticut Co., 101 Conn. 459, 465, 126 A. 688; Snow v. Coe Brass Mfg. Co., 80 Conn. 63, 68, 66 A. 881.
The trial court should have granted the motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict.
In this opinion Baldwin, J., concurred.