Cuneo v. Connecticut Co.

• Decision Date: 01 November 1938
• Citation: 2 A.2d 220,124 Conn. 647
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: CUNEO v. CONNECTICUT CO. et al.

2 A.2d 220

124 Conn. 647

CUNEO v. CONNECTICUT CO. et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

November 1, 1938

Appeal from Superior Court, Fairfield County; Kenneth Wynne, Judge.

Action by Ida G. Cuneo against the Connecticut Company and others to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by the defendants' negligence, brought to the superior court and tried to the jury. From a judgment on the verdict for plaintiff, against the named defendant, named defendant appeals.

No error.

Raymond E. Baldwin, of Bridgeport, for appellant.

John Keogh, Jr., and John Keogh, both of South Norwalk, for appellee.

Harry R. Sherwood and Hereward Wake, both of Westport, for appellee Reynolds, at the suggestion of the court, did not argue the cause.

Argued before MALTBIE, C.J., and HINMAN, AVERY, BROWN, and JENNINGS JJ.

JENNINGS, Judge.

The plaintiff, a passenger on a Connecticut Company bus, was injured while the bus was being operated by the other defendant, Clement E. Reynolds. The Connecticut Company, hereinafter referred to as the defendant, appeals from the denial of its motion to set aside the verdict and from the judgment, claiming that the court erred in refusing to charge as requested and in the charge as delivered. It claims that there was no evidence from which the jury could have found the defendant negligent and that even if negligence was found it was not, under the evidence, the proximate cause of the injury. The second question, that of proximate cause, is also raised with reference to the charge.

A comparison of the statement in the plaintiff's brief of the facts which the jury could reasonably have found with the evidence and with the defendant's statement shows that the situation could hardly be more clearly and concisely stated. It is as follows: ‘ On the evening of February 17, 1936, the plaintiff was a passenger on a bus of the defendant The Connecticut Co. which was proceeding on a scheduled run from Bridgeport to Norwalk on the Boston Post Road, and which was traveling in a general westerly direction. As the bus approached a point on the Post Road near Turkey Hill Road in Greens Farms, town of Westport, the driver had his attention called to a fire hose which was stretched diagonally across the road from a burning gasoline station on the north side of the road, in a southwesterly direction to a hydrant on the south side of the road. The hose was feeding water to a fire, and was fully inflated at the time. Traffic going in both directions was stopped. The bus driver stopped the bus on the left, or south side of the road, in close proximity to, and almost opposite a burning gasoline station. After a short time he left the bus with the motor running. He did not leave anyone in charge of the bus, although he knew that there was a fellow employee of The Connecticut Company in the bus. The driver was gone from the bus approximately from ten to fifteen minutes. The bus was left in a perilous position due to the proximity to the burning gasoline station, of which there was danger of an explosion, and also due to the fact that it was abandoned on the traveled portion of the highway in the way of traffic. There was ample space in which the bus could have been parked off the traveled portion of the highway, either on the north side of the road to the east of the fire, or off the south side of the road. While the bus driver was away from the bus, a person in uniform shouted that the bus should be moved, and that there was danger of an explosion. While the bus had been stopped, traffic going in both directions accumulated, and while the bus driver was away from the bus the hose had stopped feeding water to the fire, and had become deflated, following which, traffic began moving in both directions and on both sides of the bus. The defendant Clement E. Reynolds, a passenger in the bus, hearing the shouts about moving the bus and the danger of an explosion, got into the driver's seat and drove it across the hose over to the north or right side of the road and to the west, and not being familiar with the mechanisms of the bus, suddenly jammed the air brakes, with the result that the plaintiff was thrown violently off the seat into the air, against a stanchion, and to the floor, receiving severe and permanent injuries, for which she seeks recovery in this action.’ While there was a conflict in the testimony as to whether the bus stalled when Reynolds first attempted to start it, the plaintiff's evidence justifies the last sentence quoted.

In view of the high degree of care exacted of common carriers of passengers for hire (Robinson v. Connecticut Co., 122 Conn. 300, 301, 189 A. 453), no extended discussion of the defendant's negligence is required. The jury could reasonably have found that the bus was stopped in a place dangerous both because of the fire and the traffic hazard and that it was left unattended with the engines running contrary to a rule of the public utilities commission, in evidence. The possibilities of exercising a higher degree of care than that shown by this course of conduct are too extensive to justify elaboration.

The mere statement of this situation also disposes of the defendant's claim that the acts of the driver constituted merely a condition out of which the plaintiff's injuries arose...