Cayer v. Salvatore

• Decision Date: 26 February 1963
• Citation: 150 Conn. 361,189 A.2d 505
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Norma CAYER et al. v. Victor J. SALVATORE et al. Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut

Page 505

189 A.2d 505

150 Conn. 361

Norma CAYER et al. v. Victor J. SALVATORE et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

Feb. 26, 1963.

William P. Aspell, Hartford, for appellants (defendants).

Waldemar J. Lach, Hartford, with whom, on the brief, was Arnold E. Bayer, Hartford, for appellees (plaintiffs).

Before BALDWIN, C. J., and KING, MURPHY, SHEA and ALCORN, JJ.

BALDWIN, Chief Justice.

The defendants, Victor J. Salvatore and his son Joseph, have appealed from a judgment rendered on a verdict for the plaintiffs, Norma Cayer and her son Donald, in their action to recover damages, including medical expenses, for injuries received by Donald in an automobile accident. The plaintiffs alleged in their complaint that Joseph negligently operated his father's automobile, in which Donald was a passenger, in that Joseph drove the automobile at a high and reckless speed, failed to have it under control, so that it ran off the highway and struck a tree, and failed to keep a proper lookout to see where the automobile was going and to keep it on the traveled portion of the roadway. The defendants claim that the plaintiffs failed to prove any of these allegations of negligence and that the verdict is a product of surmise and speculation.

The jury could have found the following facts from the evidence offered by the plaintiffs: On the evening of May 2, 1958, about 9 o'clock, Donald was riding in the rear seat of the Salvatores' four-door sedan. He was seated directly behind Joseph, who was driving. There were four other occupants of the car, two riding in the front seat with Joseph and two in the rear seat with Donald. The car was proceeding north on East Street in New Britain. East Street is hard-surfaced and is thirty feet six inches wide. It was posted for a maximum speed of twenty-five miles per hour. The night was clear, and the roadway was dry. North of its intersection with Dix Avenue, East Street, for vehicles proceeding north, curves slightly to the right or east. On the outside of this curve, five feet beyond the westerly edge of the traveled portion of the road and seventy-five yards from the intersection, there is a large tree. When the Salvatore car passed through the Dix Avenue intersection a bus, headed west and about to enter the intersection, was standing in Dix Avenue at a stop sign. The occupants of the Salvatore car knew the driver of the bus. They waved to him and turned to look at him, and the horn on the Salvatore automobile was sounded. The automobile, which had been traveling on the right-hand or easterly side of the road, then crossed to the left side and ran off the road head-on into the tree. Two of the occupants of the car were thrown out of it by the impact. The others were pinned inside the car by the two seats, which were detached and shoved forward against the instrument board by the force of the collision. The front of the car was twisted around the free and demolished. The defendants offered no evidence, although Joseph was present in court during the trial. They moved for a directed verdict, but the court denied their motion.

The sole question on this appeal is whether the jury reasonably and logically could have reached the conclusion that Joseph was negligent in one or more of the ways alleged in the complaint and that his negligence was a proximate cause of the collision with the tree. No witness testified that the automobile was being driven at a high speed, that the driver was not looking where he was going or that he lost control of the car. The evidence as to these facts was circumstantial. Triers of fact must often necessarily rely on circumstantial evidence and draw inferences from it. Hennessey v. Hennessey, 145 Conn. 211, 214, 140 A.2d 473; Pillou v. Connecticut Co., 143 Conn. 481, 484, 123 A.2d 470; Drobish v. Petronzi, 142 Conn. 385, 387, 114 A.2d 685; Orico v. Williams, 139 Conn. 714, 717, 97 A.2d 556. The facts from which the trier is asked to draw the inferences must, however, afford a basis for them, in reason and in logic. Robinson v. Southern New England Telephone Co., 140 Conn. 414, 419, 101 A.2d 491, and cases cited. The test of the sufficiency of proof by circumstantial evidence is whether rational minds could reasonably and logically draw the inference. Andrea v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 14 Conn. 340, 344, 131 A.2d 642; Pierce v. Albanese, ...