Cheskus v. Christiano

• Decision Date: 03 December 1935
• Citation: 182 A. 131,120 Conn. 596
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: CHESKUS v. CHRISTIANO et al.

182 A. 131

120 Conn. 596

CHESKUS v. CHRISTIANO et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

December 3, 1935

Appeal from Superior Court, Hartford County; Patrick B O'Sullivan, Judge.

Action by Ann Cheskus, administratrix of the estate of Adeline Cheskus, against Peter Christiano, George B. Holman Incorporated, and others to recover damages for the personal injury and death of Adeline Cheskus, alleged to have been caused by the negligence of the defendants. From a judgment for the plaintiff against the defendants Peter Christiano and George B. Holman, Incorporated, such defendants appeal.

No error.

John C. Blackall, of Hartford (Charles H. Blackall, of Hartford on the brief), for appellants.

Algert F. Politis, of New Britain (Harry Ginsberg, of New Britain, on the brief), for appellee.

Argued before MALTBIE, C.J., and HAINES, HINMAN, BANKS, and AVERY, JJ.

HAINES, Judge.

The trial court found that Christiano was the driver, servant, and agent of the Holman Company and as such was driving his truck behind another truck north from New Haven toward Wallingford on the Boston Post road on the night of December 11, 1933. At about 10:45 p. m., as the trucks approached the Old Colony Lodge on the east side of the road, the leading truck pulled off the roadway to its right in front of the lodge, to renew the supply of gas from an emergency can it carried. The highway at this point was of black asphalt, the traveled portion of which was eighteen feet wide, with an east shoulder of five feet and a west shoulder of six feet. The Holman truck, which was eight feet wide, was brought to a stop by its driver before coming alongside the other one, with its left wheels six feet from the east edge of the traveled road and its right wheels two feet on the east shoulder of the road. A short time after the Holman truck stopped in this position, the defendant Matasavage approached from the south driving a new Nash car owned by the Waterbury Nash Company. He was accompanied by the decedent as a guest, a young woman twenty-four years of age, and was driving thirty-five to forty miles per hour. When within forty feet of the rear of the Holman truck he observed it in front of him and tried to avoid striking it by putting on his brakes and turning his car to the left, but failed and struck the left rear end of the truck, and the decedent was killed as a result of the impact.

The roadway south of the point where the Holman truck stood was straight and level for two hundred to three hundred feet and there was no other traffic near the scene at the time. There were no street lights, but there were a number of colored lights on the Lodge building fifty feet east of the highway and a lighted neon sign was set on a post in front of the Lodge and nineteen feet from the east edge of the traveled roadway. None of these artificial lights, however, illuminated to any extent the area where the Holman truck stood. The night was windy, clear and cold, and the traveled portion of the roadway was clear and dry with a thin layer of snow on the shoulders.

The Holman truck was of the van type with a tailboard two feet high and this had been lowered and was held flush with the floor of the van by chains suspended from the sides of the body. The van contained a load of furniture a part of which-a bed spring standing upright-extended out at the rear over and beyond the tailboard for four inches. Over the rear of the truck and its load from the top to...