Oberempt v. Egri

• Decision Date: 27 February 1979
• Citation: 410 A.2d 482,176 Conn. 652
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Barbara C. OBEREMPT, Administratrix v. Nicholas EGRI et al. (Estate of Donald A. OBEREMPT, Jr.)

Page 482

410 A.2d 482

176 Conn. 652

Barbara C. OBEREMPT, Administratrix v. Nicholas EGRI et al.

(Estate of Donald A. OBEREMPT, Jr.)

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Dec. 12, 1978.

Decided Feb. 27, 1979.

William F. Gallagher, New Haven, with whom, on the brief, were Leander C. Gray and Richard L. Shiffrin, New Haven, for appellant (plaintiff).

Kevin T. Gormley, New Haven, for appellees (defendants).

Before COTTER, C. J., and LOISELLE, BOGDANSKI, LONGO and PETERS, JJ.

PETERS, Associate Justice.

This case is a wrongful death action arising out of an automobile-truck accident on the Connecticut Turnpike that led to the electrocution of a passerby who attempted rescue. Suit was brought by the plaintiff, Barbara C. Oberempt, as administratrix of the estate of Donald A. Oberempt, to recover damages for the death of the decedent rescuer. The suit originally alleged negligence on the part of five defendants: Nicholas Egri, the driver of the automobile; the state transportation commissioner; Nathan Gische, the operator of the truck; and Simons Haulage Company, Inc., and L. I. Kennedy Trucking Company, employers of Nathan Gische. Before trial, the complaint was amended to eliminate claims against Egri, from whom the plaintiff had received a payment of $50,000, and against the commissioner. The amended complaint was submitted to a jury which returned a verdict for the defendants. The plaintiff appeals to this court from the denial of her motion to set aside the verdict and the consequent entry of judgment for the defendants. ¹

There was evidence before the jury from which they could have found the following: The accident occurred on a rainy evening in November, 1970, in the westbound lanes of I-95 in the Long Wharf area of New Haven. As the Egri automobile in the center lane passed the truck operated by Gische in the right lane, Egri was somewhat blinded by water on his windshield. Shortly after having passed the truck, Egri braked his automobile; he went into a skid which brought him into the truck's lane. Egri's automobile eventually spun off the roadway, struck a highway light pole, and thereafter became charged with electricity. Gische tried to avoid the Egri automobile, but his efforts jackknifed the truck, which went off the roadway at a location west of and beyond the automobile. The decedent Oberempt observed the accident and offered to help first Gische and then Egri. He was fatally electrocuted when he touched the doorhandle of the Egri automobile. The only important contested factual issue at the trial was whether the Egri automobile was hit by the truck, or whether it landed against the lightpole as a result of its own skid.

The plaintiff has limited her appeal to two alleged errors in the trial court's charge to the jury. She claims that the court should not have charged on intervening negligence, and should have charged more broadly on the emergency doctrine.

The trial court charged the jury on intervening negligence upon the conclusion of its charge on proximate cause. It referred to the possible intervening negligence of the commissioner of transportation and of Egri, the automobile driver, both originally cited as codefendants in the present action. As we have recently reiterated, statements in complaints against parties subsequently withdrawn from a cause of action are admissible as evidence relevant to the issue of proximate cause. Schenck v. Pelkey, 176 Conn. 245, 248, 405 A.2d 665 (1978); Tough v. Ives, 162 Conn. 274, 283, 294 A.2d 67 (1972). There was other evidence as well concerning Egri's operation of his car. The court's charge emphasized that intervening negligence would discharge the defendants only if the negligent act or omission of the commissioner, or of Egri, was found to have been the Sole proximate cause of the decedent's fatal accident. This charge was entirely proper, for the defendants could not have proximately caused an injury which had been caused solely by another. "Even though the intervening cause may be regarded as foreseeable, the defendant is not liable unless his conduct has created or increased an unreasonable risk of harm through its intervention." Prosser, Torts (4th Ed. 1971) § 44, p. 275. The case of Merhi v. Becker, 164 Conn. 516, 325 A.2d 270 (1973), relied upon by the plaintiff, is inapposite, because it concerned the responsibility for third-party intervention of a defendant found to have been negligent in a way causally connected to the plaintiff's injury. Id., 521, 325 A.2d 270.

In connection with this claim of error, the plaintiff also argues that the charge on proximate cause was defective in the manner in which it instructed the jury on the concept of concurrent negligence. Although the court's definition of proximate cause had stressed that the relevant conduct must be a substantial factor in producing the resulting...