American Nat. Fire Ins. Co. v. Schuss

• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: Before PETERS; BORDEN
• Citation: American Nat. Fire Ins. Co. v. Schuss, 607 A.2d 418, 221 Conn. 768 (Conn. 1992)
• Decision Date: 28 April 1992
• Docket Number: No. 14369,14369
• Parties: AMERICAN NATIONAL FIRE INSURANCE COMPANY, et al. v. John SCHUSS, et al.

Page 418

607 A.2d 418

221 Conn. 768

AMERICAN NATIONAL FIRE INSURANCE COMPANY, et al. v. John SCHUSS, et al.

No. 14369.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Jan. 8, 1992.

Decided April 28, 1992.

David C. Shaw, Hartford, for appellant (named plaintiff).

Lois Tanzer, with whom, on the brief, was Thomas O. Anderson, Hartford, for appellee (defendant Barry Schuss).

Before PETERS, C.J., and SHEA, COVELLO, BORDEN and BERDON, JJ.

BORDEN, Justice.

The dispositive issue in this appeal is whether the plaintiff, American National Fire Insurance Company, ¹ produced sufficient evidence for a jury to find that the defendant, Barry Schuss, ² acted negligently, rather than intentionally, when he set fire to a synagogue in West Hartford in the early morning hours of August 11, 1983. The fire destroyed, among other things, the synagogue's Torah scrolls, which were located in the ark in the main sanctuary.

The plaintiff appeals ³ from the judgment of the trial court, rendered after a jury trial, setting aside the jury's verdict in the plaintiff's favor in the amount of $167,877.07. Although the plaintiff has cast its claims on appeal in three parts, ⁴ our disposition of the first claim controls and subsumes the second and third claims. Because we agree with the trial court that there was no evidence from which the jury could reasonably have concluded that the defendant acted negligently, rather than intentionally, we affirm the judgment.

The plaintiff's revised complaint alleged that on August 11, 1983, the defendant "ignited combustible materials in multiple locations of the premises of Young Israel of West Hartford, thereby, causing a fire to occur at said premises." It further alleged that the fire and its resultant damages were caused by the negligence of the defendant "in that he, in one or more of the following ways: a. Ignited a fire, which he knew or should have known, could spread and damage or destroy the Young Israel building and its contents; b. Failed to take action to contain or extinguish the fire; c. Failed to alert or notify anyone of the existence of the fire and the necessity to extinguish it; and d. Failed to warn anyone that a fire had been ignited."

In support of these allegations, the jury had before it the following evidence, produced either by the plaintiff through exhibits and direct examination of its witnesses, or through the defendant's cross-examination of the plaintiff's witnesses including the defendant, who was called to the stand by the plaintiff. At 3:22 a.m. on August 11, 1983, the West Hartford fire department was notified of a fire at the synagogue, and arrived at the scene at 3:33 a.m. At that time, the synagogue was engulfed in a major fire that had been burning for one hour. It took approximately twenty minutes to bring the fire under control, and approximately two hours to extinguish it completely.

Officer Joseph Glowacki of the West Hartford police department, whose duties included investigation of suspicious fires, testified that the fire was "incendiary," meaning that "it was a fire that was not an act of God. It was a fire that was not accidental. It was a fire that was set by a person or persons." He determined that there were four points of origin of the fire inside the building, and that no accelerant, or flammable liquid, had been used. Matteo Pascarelli, a deputy fire chief, testified that there were three points of origin of the fire, and that when he arrived and entered the building the principal area of fire was "in the holy ark area" to the right of the front door. He also testified that all the fires had been set by a person. William Wilson, another deputy fire chief, testified that there were four points of origin: (1) in the basement, where paper towels had been burned on a table; (2) on the staircase leading from the basement to the first floor, "up against the wall under a telephone"; (3) in the front foyer of the building, where a telephone book and a prayer shawl had been ignited; and (4) in the sanctuary, where the damage was heaviest. He testified that, at that point of origin, the fire "progressed up the drapes" covering the ark and spread to the area "around the drapes such as the paneling [and] the doors...." That caused heat to be driven to the ceiling, where the "heat amasse[d] at the highest point in the room" and then banked down, eventually causing a "flashover," which occurs when the heat is so intense that material ignites spontaneously. Wilson also testified that it is easiest to fight a fire at its beginning, when the heat is less intense and when there is little damage, because the fire is on the point of origin. He testified further that it had taken five to ten minutes for the drapes to burn, and that damage to the contents of the synagogue had increased significantly when the flashover occurred, which he estimated happened between 3:12 and 3:17 a.m. Finally, he testified that the fire was incendiary, which he defined as "a deliberately set fire," and not an accidental fire or a fire caused by "an act of God such as lightning."

The defendant, who was seventeen years old at the time of the fire, came from a religious family. He lived in West Hartford with his parents, who were members of the synagogue. The plaintiff introduced into evidence the defendant's December 13, 1983 statement to the West Hartford police in which he admitted setting the fires. In that statement, the defendant stated that, on the morning of the fire, he had entered the building through a boarded up window, and had made telephone calls to Dallas, Texas. ⁵ He then began looking around and saw a book of paper matches. He stated further that, when he saw the matches, he had gotten "the idea to start a fire." He "took some paper towels from a window and put them into a plastic garbage can which was by the telephone," and put the pail near the front door. "At this time the papers in the pail were already burning," he stated. He put a prayer shawl and telephone book into the burning pail. He then left the building by the front door, and "then decided to return to the building and start another fire." He "entered the main room" and, "using the matches," he "lit one of the curtains ... located over the [ark]." He stated further that he "may have started another fire in the center of the room around a big wooden black [sic]." He "then went downstairs and tried to [light] a fire near the sink with some paper towels on a table." Then he went upstairs, left by the front door, and went home to bed.

The defendant testified that he had not gone to the synagogue with a plan to set fires. He testified that when he set fire to the curtains covering the ark, he had not intended to burn the Torah scrolls or the other contents of the building. He also testified that when he burned the curtains, he had not been thinking about whether he wanted to burn the Torah scrolls or the other contents of the building. He testified further, however, that he had intended to burn those items, including the curtains, to which he had set fire in the building. He also testified that he had left the building because the fire was out of control and he was in danger, and that he had not told anyone about the fire or called the authorities because he wanted the fire to continue and did not want to be caught.

After the jury returned its verdict in favor of the plaintiff, the defendant timely moved to set the verdict aside. The court granted the motion and rendered judgment for the defendant. This appeal followed.

The plaintiff claims that, although there was conflicting evidence, the jury could reasonably have determined from the following evidence that the defendant's conduct was negligent, rather than intentional. The defendant testified that he had not gone to the synagogue with the intent to start a fire. The plaintiff argues that the jury could have inferred from the defendant's testimony that he had intended to start "a few, small fires in relatively confined areas, such as in a garbage can, and near a sink while talking on the telephone," and that he had "set small fires in locations so as to avoid damage to the contents of Young Israel Synagogue, and the holy Torah scrolls." The plaintiff argues further that the jury could have inferred from the defendant's testimony that he had started the fires while talking on the telephone, "that due care required that he report them," and that he did not do so because he "became afraid when the fires unexpectedly got out of control and presented a danger to him." We are unpersuaded.

The function of the trial court in setting a verdict aside, and the role of this court in reviewing that action, are well settled. "The trial court possesses inherent power to set aside a jury verdict which, in the court's opinion, is against the law or the evidence." Palomba v. Gray, 208 Conn. 21, 23-24, 543 A.2d 1331 (1988). The trial court should not set a verdict aside where there was some evidence upon which the jury could reasonably have based its verdict, but should not refuse to set it aside " 'where the manifest injustice of the verdict is so plain and palpable as clearly to denote that some mistake was made by the jury in the application of legal principles, or as to justify the suspicion that [the jurors] or some of them were influenced by prejudice, corruption or partiality.' " Id., at 24, 543 A.2d 1331. Within these parameters, furthermore, the trial court may set a verdict aside "even if the evidence was conflicting and there was direct evidence in favor of the party who prevailed with the jury." Id. Ultimately, "[t]he decision to set aside a verdict entails the exercise of a broad legal discretion...." Id. Limiting that discretion, however, is the litigants' "constitutional right to have issues of fact determined by a jury" where " 'there is room for a reasonable difference of opinion among fairminded' " jurors. Id., at 25, 543 A.2d 1331.

This court's...