Court Opinion

ID: 9861609
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 00:12:35.435906+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:28:42.171184
License: Public Domain

Murphy, J.
(dissenting). I find it impossible to agree with the opinion of the majority that the trial court erred either in its ruling on evidence or in directing the verdict. As the evidential ruling, if incorrect, would have a bearing on the correctness of the court’s action in directing the verdict, I shall discuss that first.
Under General Statutes § 6-56, the medical examiner is called on to make out and sign two death certificates. The first one he has to leave with the registrar of vital statistics, and it has to be “in the form required by law.” The form which is required by law is a certificate on the blank which is furnished by the state department of health under General Statutes § 7-62. Either the physician last in attendance on a deceased person or, in a case where the medical examiner has to act, the medical examiner is obliged to file such a certificate. It has to include “the cause of death, defined so that such death may be classified under the international list of causes of death, . . . and such additional information as the state department of health requires.” The certificate of death which was held to be admissible in Branford Trust Co. v. Prudential Ins. Co., 102 Conn. 481, 487, 129 A. 379, was the certificate of death which had to be filed with the registrar in accordance with § 228 of the 1918 Revision and *399chapter 45 of the 1919 Public Acts. Those sections were the forerunners of §§ 6-56 and 7-62.
The second certificate for which the medical examiner is responsible under § 6-56 has to be mailed or delivered to the coroner. That is the certificate with which we are concerned. The statute is silent as to the information which this certificate should contain. There is no requirement that it include the “cause of death,” the essential information in the certificate filed with the registrar and the information which makes the certificate admissible under the rule laid down in the Branford case, supra. The certificate in the present case did, however, state the cause as being a fracture of the skull. It also included the statement of the medical examiner that the decedent “apparently fell from the rear stairs striking his head.” The court ordered the statement deleted from the exhibit. In the Branford case, the medical examiner’s conclusion that the cause of death was suicide was admitted because that cause of death was one of the causes listed in the international list. Here, the fall from the stairs, if it actually happened, was not the cause of death but merely the cause of the injury. Therefore the statement which was excluded did not qualify for admission under the Branford rule.
In Lurier v. Danbury Bus Corporation, 144 Conn. 544, 547, 135 A.2d 597, we said: “In the exceptional case, however, a verdict may properly be directed. Our rule as to the direction of a verdict has remained unchanged although it has not always been expressed in identical phraseology. It is clearly and tersely stated in Mott v. Hillman, 133 Conn. 552, 555, 52 A.2d 861, as follows: ‘While the direction of a verdict is not favored, it is justified if upon the evidence the jury could not reasonably *400and legally have reached any other conclusion than that embodied in the verdict as rendered; Bernardo v. Hoffman, 109 Conn. 158, 159, 145 A. 884; and if, had the verdict been rendered for the other party, the evidence was so weak that it would be proper for the court to set it aside. Currie v. Consolidated Ry. Co., 81 Conn. 383, 388, 71 A. 356.’” The majority opinion neglects to mention the other evidence in the case which the court had to take into consideration in deciding whether it was more probable than not that the decedent’s death was proximately caused by the defective condition of the stairs. Facey v. Merkle, 146 Conn. 129, 135, 148 A.2d 261. For five months, the decedent had been separated from his wife and three children because of his drinking, and he had been laid off his job as truck driver three months before his death. The medical examiner estimated that death had occurred from four to six hours before his examination of the body at 8 a.m. and that the fatal injury could have been the result of several different causes.
The majority opinion promotes the construction of a “cob house of inferences” — expressly disapproved by us in Levidow v. Starin, 77 Conn. 600, 603, 60 A. 123. It was incumbent on the plaintiff to establish that the defective condition of the stairs was the proximate cause of her decedent’s injury and death. No one saw him on the stairs or on the second floor. This case is clearly distinguishable from the cases cited by the majority in which we held that there was sufficient direct testimonial evidence of circumstances from which logical and reasonable inferences of other material facts could be fairly drawn. Pierce v. Albanese, 144 Conn. 241, 256, 129 A.2d 606. In White v. Herbst, 128 Conn. 659, 25 A.2d 68, the decedent had left the second-*401floor apartment of a relative about an hour before his body was found at the foot of the stairs. In Dickson v. Yale University, 141 Conn. 250, 105 A.2d 463, a man on the third floor saw the body pass a window as it fell. In Facey v. Merkle, supra, 131, the body of the decedent was observed rolling down the last few steps of the stairway.
To render a verdict for the plaintiff here, it would be necessary for the jury to pile inference upon inference. My colleagues seem to approve of so doing because there is no rule of law forbidding it. There is, however, the limitation on the trier that inferences can be drawn only from, and bear a logical relation to, other facts which have been proved and cannot legally rest on facts which are merely surmised. State v. Foord, 142 Conn. 285, 294, 113 A.2d 591, citing Fitch v. State, 138 Conn. 534, 541, 86 A.2d 718, and Donovan v. Connecticut Co., 86 Conn. 82, 87, 84 A. 288.
The only facts, other than the structural defects in the stairs, which have been proved in this case are: (1) Blados left his wife’s house, a mile and a half away, about 11 p.m. to go to his mother’s house; (2) his body was found on the ground in the corner made by the main flight of the outside stairs and the short flight leading to it; (3) he had sustained a basal skull fracture; (4) death occurred between 2 and 4 a.m.; (5) his shoes were on the ground near the body. From these facts the jury are to be allowed to infer that when he arrived in the rear yard he (1) removed his shoes, (2) started up the stairs, (3) tripped on a defective tread, (4) fell over the railing, and (5) landed in such a manner on the ground that the base of his skull was fractured — and that the defective condition of the stairs was the proximate cause. It would be just as rea*402sonable to suppose that if he actually made the stairs and started up he dropped his shoes over the railing and as he leaned over to retrieve them toppled to the ground. And what of the inference which could be drawn from the location of the laceration and the fracture? Would a fracture at the base rather than on the vault of the skull result when a person landed on his head? As the court would have had to set aside any verdict which was rendered on the hodgepodge of unreasonable possibilities advanced in this case, it acted properly in directing the verdict. Currie v. Consolidated Ry. Co., 81 Conn. 383, 388, 71 A. 356.
In this opinion Palmer, J., concurred.