Carrington v. Bobb
| Decision Date | 07 April 1936 |
| Citation | 121 Conn. 258,184 A. 591 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | CARRINGTON v. BOBB. |
Appeal from Court of Common Pleas, New Haven County; Edward J. Finn Judge.
Action by Elizabeth Carrington against Arthur Bobb to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by the negligence of the defendant, which was tried to the jury. Verdict and judgment for defendant, and plaintiff appeals.
No error.
Yale Matzkin, George H. Lynch, and Lawrence J. Matzkin, all of Waterbury, for appellant.
DeLancey S. Pelgrift, of Hartford, and Theodore V. Meyer, of Waterbury, for appellee.
Argued before MALTBIE, C.J., and HINMAN, AVERY, BANKS, and BROWN JJ.
The plaintiff was a tenant in a three-family tenement house owned by the defendant. The front entrance to the house was by way of concrete steps leading to a concrete platform, thence across the platform and up wooden steps to the front verandah from which a door led to an interior hallway and a stairway leading to the separate apartments. The concrete steps platform, and wooden steps were under the exclusive control of the defendant. About 8 o'clock at night the plaintiff, while stepping from the bottom wooden steps to the concrete platform, fell down the concrete steps. She claimed that there had existed for some time in the topmost riser of the concrete steps a large crack or fissure two or three inches in width, and that in consequence the platform was in an unstable condition and rocked when stepped on; also that there were two stones in the platform which extended above the level of the concrete base and were in the path of a person descending the wooden steps to the platform. She claimed that as she was stepping from the wooden step to the concrete platform she stepped on something which seemed to give way, and as she attempted to regain her balance she stepped on the top step of the concrete steps which also seemed to give way, causing her to fall down the steps. She also claimed that there was no handrail leading from the sidewalk to the second riser of the wooden steps, and that the verandah was not lighted at the time she fell. The plaintiff assigns error in the denial of her motion to set aside the verdict, in the charge of the court, and the failure to charge as requested, and in a single ruling upon evidence.
The assignment of error based upon the denial of the plaintiff's motion to set the verdict aside was not pursued in brief or oral argument, and an examination of the record discloses that there was evidence from which the jury could reasonably have reached the conclusion that the approaches to defendant's building were in a reasonably safe condition, and that the defendant was not negligent in any of the respects claimed by the plaintiff.
The plaintiff requested the court to charge that the approach to defendant's house where the plaintiff fell was a " public hall" in a tenement house within the definition of such a hall in section 2562 of the General Statutes, that it was the defendant's duty to provide for the lighting of such hall at night, and that his failure to do so, if the proximate cause of the plaintiff's fall, would be actionable negligence. The court charged that there was no statutory duty on the part of the defendant to light the verandah, but that if there was a faulty condition existing there and the placing of a light there was reasonably necessary to protect the people using the place, the failure to have a light there would be negligent. Section 2566, in chapter 143 of the General Statutes, provides that " the owner of each tenement house shall provide for the lighting of all public halls at night," and section 2562 in this chapter and in chapter 144 (section 2568 et seq.), known as the " Tenement House Act," as " a hall, corridor or passageway not within an apartment."
The concrete platform where the plaintiff fell was not a " public hall" within the statutory definition. It was a part of the outside steps furnishing an approach to the front verandah of the house. In attempting to...
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Duncan v. Mill Mgmt. Co. of Greenwich,Inc., 18722.
...repairs is inadmissible to prove negligence or [as] an admission of negligence at the time of the accident.” Carrington v. Bobb, 121 Conn. 258, 262, 184 A. 591 (1936); see Nalley v. Hartford Carpet Co., 51 Conn. 524, 531–32 (1884). Section 4–7 provides in relevant part that “evidence of mea......
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Hall v. Burns
...subsequent repairs is inadmissible to prove negligence or an admission of negligence at the time of the accident." Carrington v. Bobb, 121 Conn. 258, 262, 184 A. 591 (1936); see Rokus v. Bridgeport, supra, 191 Conn. at 65, 463 A.2d 252. This court, however, has admitted evidence of subseque......
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Shegda v. Hartford-conn. Trust Co.
...have led to the generally accepted rule that subsequent repairs are not admissible as evidence of prior negligence. Carrington v. Bobb, 121 Conn. 258, 262, 184 A. 594; 2 Wigmore, Evidence, 3d Ed., § 283. The instant case presents a very different situation from that before us in the cases a......
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Duncan v. Mill Mgmt. Co. of Greenwich
...repairs is inadmissible to prove negligence or [as] an admission of negligence at the time of the accident." Carrington v. Bobb, 121 Conn. 258, 262, 184 A. 591 (1936); see Nalley v. Hartford Carpet Co., 51 Conn. 524, 531-32 (1884). Section 4-7 provides in relevant part that "evidence of mea......