Bujnak v. Connecticut Co.
| Citation | 94 Conn. 468,109 A. 244 |
| Court | Supreme Court of Connecticut |
| Decision Date | 05 March 1920 |
| Parties | BUJNAK v. CONNECTICUT CO. |
Appeal from Superior Court, Fairfield County; William M. Maltbie Judge.
Action by Annie Bujnak against the Connecticut Company to recover damages for personal injuries resulting in the death of the plaintiff's intestate and alleged to have been caused by the defendant's negligence. Verdict for the plaintiff for $2,500, which the trial court, upon motion of the defendant set aside as against the evidence, and from this ruling the plaintiff appealed. No error.
Barnum avenue is a public highway, 43 feet wide between curbs extending from Bridgeport easterly to Stratford. The defendant's double track trolley line is in the center of the street; the west-bound tracks being the northerly ones. Just previous to the accident in which the plaintiff's intestate lost his life, he was driving a two-horse dump cart along the southerly, or his right hand, side of the tracks and going easterly. Dorus street leads off from Barnum avenue towards the north. The decedent was intending to turn into Dorus street, and was in the act of doing so when his team was struck by a west-bound car, with the result that he was thrown from his seat on the cart and received fatal injuries. The other pertinent facts are sufficiently stated in the opinion.
Evidence in an action for the death of a driver, who turned in front of an approaching street car, held insufficient to show motorman's negligence, warranting recovery under the last clear chance doctrine.
Frank L. Wilder, of Bridgeport, for appellant.
Seth W. Baldwin, of New Haven, for appellee.
The plaintiff's verdict, set aside, imports that the jury must have found either that the plaintiff's intestate was free from negligence in the premises, or that by the operation of the so-called last clear chance doctrine his negligence is entitled to be regarded as a remote cause only of his injuries. The evidence removes the first of these alternative conclusions from the realm of reasonable possibility. We do not understand that counsel for the plaintiff claim otherwise. Her sole reliance in support of the verdict appears to be that the evidence furnishes a reasonable basis for a conclusion on their part that the conditions we have heretofore laid down as justifying the relegation of an injured person's negligence from the position of a proximate cause to that of remote cause are satisfied. Such, at least, it must be. The burden of establishing the existence of these conditions is upon the plaintiff, since failure to do so leaves her in the position of one who, having been guilty of contributory negligence, seeks to recover.
If the conditions referred to were satisfied, it must be for the reason that after the deceased, in his progress along Barnum avenue and across that avenue to turn into Dorus street, had reached a position in which, or by reason of which, he or his team would be hit by the approaching car, unless he was able to escape into one of safety, the defendant's motorman became aware, or ought to have become aware, of the peril to which the former was exposed, and that the latter could not in the exercise of reasonable efforts escape therefrom, or would not make such efforts, and thereafter had the time and opportunity, with the exercise of reasonable effort on his part, to have stopped his car in season to prevent the threatened collision. Tullock v. Conn. Co., 94 Conn. 201, 108 A. 556.
As the decedent approached the point of accident, he was proceeding easterly along the south, or his right hand, side of Barnum avenue at a safe distance, but not over 10 feet, from cars passing on the west-bound tracks. If, as Dorus street was approached, he, in order to enter it, turned suddenly and sharply to the left to cross the defendant's tracks, and almost instantly and without warning was upon the west-bound tracks with his team, immediately in front of the car, as the defendant sought to prove, it is self-evident that the conditions above enumerated could not have arisen. Evidence however, was produced on behalf of the plaintiff, which the jury might well have believed, to the effect that the plaintiff did not so turn, but that, on the contrary, as he neared Dorus street he gradually swung in towards the west-bound tracks, and made a long...
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Smith v. Gould, 6942.
...borne in mind, for otherwise the place occupied by contributory negligence in our law is lost sight of." Bujnak v. Connecticut Co., 94 Conn. 468, 109 A. 244. "The doctrine of the last clear chance rests upon the principle that there is something in the plaintiff's condition or situation to ......
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Smith v. Gould
...be constantly borne in mind, for otherwise the place occupied by contributory negligence in our law is lost sight of." Bujnak v. Connecticut Co., 94 Conn. 468, 109 A. 244, "The doctrine of the last clear chance rests upon principle that there is something in the plaintiff's condition or sit......
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Smith v. Gould, (No. 6942)
...be constantly borne in mind, for otherwise the place occupied by contributory negligence in our law is lost sight of." Bujnak v. Connecticut Co., 94 Conn. 468. "The doctrine of the last clear chance rests upon the principle that there is something in the plaintiff's condition or situation t......
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Correnti v. Catino
...160 A. 892 115 Conn. 213 CORRENTI v. CATINO. Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.June 21, 1932 . Appeal. from Superior Court, Fairfield County; Arthur F. Ells, Judge. . . Action. by Frank Correnti against ... Co., 98 Conn. 370, 119 A. 348; Deutsch v. Connecticut Co., 98 Conn. 482, 119 A. 891. The. distinction is perhaps best explained in Bujnak v. Connecticut Co., 94 Conn. 468, 109 A. 244, 245, a case. where the plaintiff offered evidence to prove that he. approached a trolley track upon ......