La Chase v. Sanders

• Decision Date: 01 February 1955
• Citation: 142 Conn. 122,111 A.2d 690
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Nicholas LA CHASE v. Gerald SANDERS. Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut

Page 690

111 A.2d 690

142 Conn. 122

Nicholas LA CHASE v. Gerald SANDERS.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

Feb. 1, 1955.

Snow G. Munford, Hartford, for appellant (plaintiff).

Frank E. Dully, Hartford, with whom, on the brief, was Francis J. McCarthy, Hartford, for appellee (defendant).

Before BALDWIN, O'SULLIVAN, DALY and WYNNE, JJ., and BORDON, Superior judge.

WYNNE, Associate Justice.

In this action the plaintiff sought $30,000 damages for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by the defendant in the negligent operation of a motor vehicle. The case was tried to the jury, who returned a verdict for $2000 in favor of the plaintiff. He moved to set it aside on the ground that it was against the evidence and the law. The court refused to set it aside, and the plaintiff has appealed. His basic claim is that the amount of the verdict was inadequate by reason of improper remarks made by the trial judge to the jury. The assignments of error concern only the above.

Before starting the charge to the jury as to the issues in the case, the trial judge said: 'And with no desire, ladies and gentlemen, to be facetious, I apologize for taking your time on this case. It has no business being in the Superior Court; and the reason I say that--and this is not an argument for the defendant--is that at the annual dinner of the State Bar Association last night the Chief Justice, who is a resident of Middletown and will take office on the 26th of October, reviewed the statistics and compared the number of cases that are returned and disposed of in the courts--both the Common Pleas and Superior Courts--ten years ago and today. The report of the Judicial Council was released recently. A copy of them, as they apply to our cases, I received over the week-end. I did not have a chance to examine it, but the Chief Justice did. I am sorry to say we have thirty thousand undisposed of cases as of July, 1953, in the eight counties of this state. This case does not belong in the Superior Court, and with that I will go on to the charge. The similarity between the ad damnum in this case and the figures the Chief Justice recited last night called it to mind.'

Just before concluding the charge, the trial judge said: 'I was interested, within the past few days, in reading--I think it was in the New York Times-- early this week that at one time--this isn't evidence, now. Please don't consider it as such, because I am not qualifying as a doctor. I read in this article, that two doctors reported to their fellow doctors at one of their conventions that a--an old-fashioned liniment was determined by them to be rather effective in the relief of pain in the joints, and it particularly referred to arthritis and rheumatism. It didn't mention it by name, and said it was originally developed as a horse liniment. We haven't any evidence as to how many bottles of Sloan's liniment were purchased here, but I suppose in addition to the hot-water bottle and heating pad, at least there were some bottles of the old-fashioned horse liniment. And I venture to say--and this is, by the way, a guess on my part--that a poultice in the form of a fair-sized check applied to this shoulder will relieve whatever pain there is at the present time.'

The trial judge should not have made the remarks...