O'Brien v. H. L. Green Co.

• Decision Date: 28 May 1941
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: O'BRIEN v. H. L. GREEN CO.

20 A.2d 411

128 Conn. 68

O'BRIEN

v. H. L. GREEN CO.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

May 28, 1941.

Appeal from Superior Court, Fairfield County; Robert L. Munger, Judge.

Action by Ellen O'Brien against H. L. Green Company to recover damages for personal injuries, alleged to have been caused by the negligence of the defendant, brought to the Superior Court in Fairfield County and tried to the jury before Munger, J.; verdict and judgment for the plaintiff and appeal by the defendant. Error and case remanded with direction.

Argued before MALTBIE, C. J., and AVERY, BROWN, JENNINGS, and ELLS, JJ.

Lorin W. Willis, of Bridgeport, for appellant.

Philip Reich, of Bridgeport (Samuel Reich, of Bridgeport, on the brief), for appellee.

MALTBIE, Chief Justice.

The plaintiff secured a verdict for damages resulting from a fall in the store of the defendant claimed to be due to the slippery condition of the floor, and the defendant has appealed from the denial of its motion to set the verdict aside. The plaintiff testified that, after her fall, she looked at the floor and saw there a round greasy spot eighteen inches to two feet in diameter, with lumps of grease on it; and that she saw two marks on the floor where her feet had slipped, about two feet long. She offered no evidence except her own that her fall was due to the slippery condition of the floor; there is much in the record to throw doubt on her testimony and much evidence that the floor was not slippery. However, we do not need to consider whether or not this was a case where the verdict was so palpably against the evidence as to warrant a conclusion that the jury were so swayed by sympathy for the plaintiff as to arrive at an improper result. Horvath v. Tontini, 126 Conn. 462, 464, 11 A.2d 846; Nichols v. Nichols, 126 Conn. 614, 617, 13 A.2d 591. The testimony established that the defendant some days before had used a dressing upon the floor. But all the evidence offered as to this dressing was to the effect that the preparation would not make the floor slippery, and even if the jury disregarded this testimony, they would not be justified in finding that the opposite was true. Meagher v. Colonial Homes Co., 109 Conn. 343, 347, 146 A. 609.

Evidently recognizing this situation, the plaintiff in her brief places her claim upon the ground that the jury could properly have found that the floor was rendered slippery by a combination of a gummy residue left from the floor dressing with dirt,...