Boileau v. Williams
| Citation | 185 A. 429,121 Conn. 432 |
| Court | Supreme Court of Connecticut |
| Decision Date | 03 June 1936 |
| Parties | BOILEAU v. WILLIAMS et al. |
Appeal from Court of Common Pleas, New Haven County, District of Waterbury; Edward J. Finn, Judge.
Action by Celestine Boileau against John Williams and the Connecticut Company to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by the negligence of the defendants. Judgment for the plaintiff, and defendants appeal.
No error as to defendant Williams; error and new trial ordered as to the defendant the Connecticut Company.
Charles A. Watrous and James W. Cooper, both of New Haven for appellant Connecticut Co.
Harrison D. Schofield, of Hartford, for appellant Williams.
Michael V. Blansfield, of Waterbury, for appellee.
Argued before MALTBIE, C.J., and HINMAN, BANKS, AVERY, and BROWN, JJ.
The plaintiff was a passenger in a bus of the Connecticut Company which had stopped opposite his house to permit him to alight, and while he was engaged in paying his fare the bus was struck in the rear by a car operated by the defendant Williams. As a result of the collision he was thrown to the floor of the bus and injured. He brought suit against Williams and the Connecticut Company and recovered a verdict against both. Both defendants appeal from the refusal of the trial court to set aside the verdict, and the Connecticut Company also appeals on the ground of claimed errors in the charge and the refusal of the court to charge as requested.
With respect to the appeal of the defendant Williams, the jury could reasonably have found the following facts: At the point where the bus had stopped the road was 28 feet wide. The bus, which was 85 inches wide, came to a stop with its right front wheel one foot from the grass on the easterly edge of the road and its right back wheel about two feet from the grass. There was a curve in the road at this point, but the bus was clearly visible to a driver of a car approaching from the rear for a distance of at least 275 feet. The stop lights on the bus were lighted when it came to a stop, and the driver looked in his rear mirror and saw no vehicle approaching within the limits of his vision of 275 feet. The bus had been standing about half a minute with its brakes set when it was struck in the rear by the Williams car with such force as to shove it forward a distance variously stated as between 5 and 15 feet. As Williams approached the bus from the rear there were three people walking toward him on his left side of the road and nearly opposite the bus. He applied his brakes, the road was wet, and his car slid for about 75 feet and struck the rear of the bus. He knew the road was slippery, and if he had applied his brakes when he first saw the bus he could have stopped his car without striking it.
The defendant Williams claimed that the space between the pedestrians and the bus was such that it would have been dangerous to attempt to pass between them, and contends that their presence upon the side of the road opposite the bus created a sudden emergency requiring him to elect between endangering their lives and colliding with the bus, and that, when confronted with this emergency, he did all that could reasonably be expected of him to avoid a collision. If the emergency was created by his own negligent conduct, that he subsequently did all that could be expected of him to avoid an accident would not absolve him from liability for the results of his previous negligence. Pietrycka v. Simolan, 98 Conn. 490, 498, 120 A. 310; Washburn v. LaMay, 116 Conn. 576, 577, 165 A. 791. The jury could reasonably have found that if he had been keeping a proper lookout he could have seen the pedestrians as well as the bus when he was at least 275 feet away, and that if he had proceeded thereafter at a reasonable rate of speed and had his car under proper control he should have been able, when he found it was not safe to pass between the pedestrians and the bus, to have brought his car to a stop without striking either of them. The trial court did not err in refusing to set aside the verdict as against this defendant.
The only allegations in the complaint of negligence on the part of the Connecticut Company were that the bus had stopped on a curve with its end protruding into the highway so as to impede traffic in violation of section 1639 of the General Statutes, and that it failed to display lights in violation of sections 1598 and 1640 of the General Statutes. Section 1640 requires the lighting of vehicles from onehalf hour after sunset until one-half hour before sunrise. The collision occurred between sunrise and sunset and the court correctly instructed the jury that this section had no application to the case. The portion of section 1598 claimed to be applicable in this connection provides, in substance, that whenever smoke or weather conditions render it impossible to see at least 200 feet ahead each motor vehicle shall display a red light from behind. The court read a portion of this section to the jury and submitted to them the question whether, upon the evidence as to the weather conditions existing, it was necessary to have such a light burning. It does not appear from the finding that any party offered evidence to prove that the weather conditions were such that it was impossible to see 200 feet ahead. The most that appears in the finding is that the plaintiff offered evidence that the visibility was poor because the sky was overcast, that it was not raining and no vehicles on the road had headlights burning. The court should not have submitted to the jury the question of this defendant's liability under this allegation of negligence. Reference to the evidence in connection with the defendant's motion to set the verdict aside discloses that there was no evidence which would justify a verdict based upon this allegation, and, further, that the failure of the bus to display a red light could not have been a proximate cause of the collision, since Williams himself testified that he saw the bus as soon as he rounded the curve.
With regard to the claim of negligence based upon a violation of the provisions of section 1639, the court charged as follows ...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Corey v. Phillips
...120 A. 291. This its charge upon legal cause above quoted failed to do, and this failure constitutes reversible error. Boileau v. Williams, 121 Conn. 432, 440, 185 A. 429. The law is that while ‘ the injury resulting from breach of duty need not be the direct or immediate result of the wron......
-
Petrizzo v. Commercial Contractors Corp.
...stated the purport of the statute and because the claims of proof failed to support the statute's applicability. Boileau v. Williams, 121 Conn. 432, 438, 185 A. 429. We turn then to the six claims of error in the rulings on evidence. The rulings fall into three classes. In the first, Petriz......
-
Zatkin v. Katz
...Wrecking Company. Lombardi v. Wallad, 98 Conn. 510, 518, 120 A. 291; Wells v. Lavitt, 115 Conn. 117, 121, 160 A. 617; Boileau v. Williams, 121 Conn. 432, 440, 185 A. 429; Corey v. Phillips, 126 Conn. 246, 255, 10 A.2d The trial court did not err in setting aside the verdict. The contention ......
-
Cuneo v. Connecticut Co.
...more difficult. Proximate cause is ordinarily a question of fact. Nichols v. Watson, 119 Conn. 673, 640, 178 A. 427; Boileau v. Williams, 121 Conn. 432, 439, 185 A. 429. When, as here, the situation is complicated by the of another cause, it is still a question of fact if, taking all the ci......