Court Opinion

ID: 9762886
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:33:30.295992+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:38.301498
License: Public Domain

House, C. J.
(concurring in the result). I concur in the result because of the error in the portion of the charge concerning the necessity for the giving of a signal before turning. I do not, however, agree with the portion of the opinion which finds that the *73court erred in taking judicial notice of the distance within which, under normal circumstances, an automobile can be stopped and charging the jury accordingly. As the majority opinion notes, this court, in Muse v. Page, 125 Conn. 219, 225, 4 A.2d 329, quoted with approval from McCombs v. Fellis, 337 Mo. 491, 498, 85 S.W.2d 135: “While courts may not take judicial notice of the precise distance a given automobile may be stopped under given conditions, judicial notice has been taken of the limits within which a stop could be effected.” The trial court charged this principle almost verbatim taking judicial notice of normal reaction and braking times and telling the jury: “A court cannot take judicial knowledge of the precise distance in which a car may be stopped in a given situation, but judicial notice can be taken of the distance within which it can be stopped. You can’t say that a car can be stopped exactly at 25 feet, but we can say that . . . [it] can be stopped within 50 feet.”
The annotation in 84 A.L.R.2d 979, entitled “Judicial notice of drivers’ reaction time and of stopping distance of motor vehicles traveling at various speeds,” at page 980 reports that “[i]n the overwhelming majority of the cases where this problem has been presented, the courts have ruled in favor of taking judicial notice of reaction time and stopping distance.” I see no good reason for our court to abandon its position of concurrence with the overwhelming majority of courts.