Berniere v. Kripps
| Decision Date | 08 January 1969 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | Sheila BERNIERE v. Richard G. KRIPPS et al. |
Peter C. Dorsey, New Haven, with whom, on the brief, was John C. Flanagan, New Haven, for appellant (defendant Mary Berniere, admx.).
Joseph F. Trotta, New Haven, with whom was Edward F. Piazza, New Haven, for appellee (plaintiff).
Before KING, C.J., and ALCORN, HOUSE, COTTER and RYAN, JJ.
The defendant Mary Berniere, as administratrix of the estate of Bernice Berniere, appeals both from a judgment rendered against her in favor of the plaintiff and from the decision of the court in denying her motion to set aside the verdict and for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. 1 In addition, she claims, inter alia, error in the charge. On December 23, 1961, the plaintiff was a passenger in the right front seat of a car owned and being operated in an easterly direction on South Elm Street in Wallingford by her mother, Bernice Berniere, the decedent of the defendant Mary Berniere, administratrix, when it was in a collision with a car driven by the defendant Richard G. Kripps, who was driving his vehicle in an opposite or westerly direction on South Elm Street. South Elm Street, at the scene of the collision, is a winding, narrow, public highway, between seventeen feet seven inches and eighteen feet wide, and it runs in a generally easterly and westerly direction.
We restrict our discussion to certain claimed errors in the charge which will, in the view which we take of the case, dispose of the appeal. The instructions to the jury are tested by the claims of proof advanced by the parties, and they must be accurate in law, adapted to the issues and adequate to guide the jury in reaching a correct verdict. Lopes v. Connecticut Light & Power Co., 145 Conn. 313, 315, 142 A.2d 135. Among other issues, the charge touched upon the duty of an operator to maintain a reasonable and proper lookout and upon the claim of the plaintiff that the defendant's decedent was driving at an unreasonable, improper and excessive rate of speed having regard to the width, traffic and use of the highway and the weather conditions existing at the time of the accident. The defendant Mary Berniere, administratrix, is hereinafter referred to as the defendant.
It is apparent that two important, if not paramount, issues concerned lookout and speed so that it was essential that the legal principles bearing on those issues be carefully and accurately presented to the jury. The following brief recital of some of the claims of proof, not in serious dispute, points up the importance of the necessity for such a treatment of these issues. At the point where the accident occurred, the road has a slight curve in an easterly direction, and then, continuing in an easterly direction, it is straight for 500 or 600 feet. On the south side of the highway in the vicinity of the accident, there is a Y-shaped driveway which runs into South Elm Street from the south and forms a grassy triangle with mail boxes along the triangle's northerly edge immediately adjacent to the traveled portion of the highway.
According to the claims of proof, which found substantial support in the evidence, as the decedent approached a blind curve to her left coming up a slight rise, she saw the glare of headlights approximately 1000 feet away. After she rounded the curve, she saw what turned out to be the Kripps car about 500 to 900 feet away coming toward her on the wrong side of the road. She pulled over to the right to the mail boxes. At the time of the impact, she was in her own eastbound lane, as far to the right as she could go, over on the shoulder next to some trees, and almost at a complete stop. Skid marks left by the Kripps vehicle began sixty-four feet seven inches northeast of the point of impact, and the Berniere car was pushed back approximately fifteen to twenty feet after impact. The Kripps vehicle came to rest on the eastbound or the ...
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