Curry v. Burns

• Decision Date: 15 June 1993
• Docket Number: No. 14551,14551
• Citation: 225 Conn. 782,626 A.2d 719
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Vicki S. CURRY v. William BURNS, Commissioner of Transportation.

Page 719

626 A.2d 719

225 Conn. 782

Vicki S. CURRY v. William BURNS, Commissioner of Transportation.

No. 14551.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Feb. 8, 1993.

Decided June 15, 1993.

James H. Lee, Fairfield, for appellant (plaintiff).

Raymond J. Plouffe, Jr., Bridgeport, for appellee (defendant).

Neil W. Sutton, Bridgeport, filed a brief for CT Trial Lawyers Ass'n as amicus curiae.

Before PETERS, C.J., and CALLAHAN, BORDEN, BERDON and KATZ, JJ.

BORDEN, Associate Justice.

The dispositive issue of this appeal is the continued viability of the application of the general verdict rule to the denial of factually distinct elements of a single cause of action, as previously articulated by this court in Finley v. Aetna Life & Casualty Co., 202 Conn. 190, 201-204, 520 A.2d 208 (1987). The plaintiff appeals, upon our grant of certification, from the judgment of the Appellate Court; Curry v. Burns, 27 Conn.App. 439, 606 A.2d 731 (1992); affirming the judgment of the trial court upon the ground that the general verdict rule precluded appellate consideration of her claims of trial court error. We now reverse.

The plaintiff, Vicki S. Curry, brought this action against the defendant, the commissioner of transportation, pursuant to General Statutes § 13a-144, ¹ for injuries allegedly incurred as a result of a defective highway. The case was tried to a jury. At trial, the defendant denied both that: (1) he had breached his statutory duty to maintain the highway; and (2) the plaintiff had given proper notice as required by § 13a-144. Id., at 441, 606 A.2d 731. No interrogatories were submitted to the jury, which returned a general verdict in favor of the defendant. Id., at 441-42, 606 A.2d 731. The trial court denied the plaintiff's motion to set aside the verdict, and rendered judgment for the defendant on the verdict.

On appeal to the Appellate Court, the plaintiff raised claims only with respect to the statutory notice issue. She claimed that the trial court had improperly: (1) quashed two subpoenas; (2) redacted the statutory notice given by the plaintiff; and (3) failed to instruct the jury as requested. Id., at 440, 606 A.2d 731. The Appellate Court declined to address the plaintiff's claims because it concluded, in justified reliance upon the general verdict rule as articulated and applied in Finley, that any such error would have been harmless. Accordingly, the Appellate Court concluded that the trial court's judgment must be affirmed. Id., at 443, 606 A.2d 731.

We granted certification on the following issue: "Does the denial of an allegation of the furnishing of a required statutory notice constitute a clearly distinct defense for purposes of the general verdict rule?" Curry v. Burns, 223 Conn. 904, 610 A.2d 176 (1992). We conclude that our decision in Finley unduly broadened the general verdict rule and that, therefore, that portion of Finley concerning the application of the general verdict rule should be overruled. Accordingly, the judgment of the Appellate Court, which was based upon that portion of Finley, must be reversed, and the case remanded to the Appellate Court for consideration of the plaintiff's claims.

As it has generally been understood, and to the extent that it is not in dispute in this case, "[t]he so-called general verdict rule provides that, if a jury renders a general verdict for one party, and no party requests interrogatories, an appellate court will presume that the jury found every issue in favor of the prevailing party. Stone v. Bastarache, 188 Conn. 201, 204, 449 A.2d 142 (1982); Collucci v. Pinette, 185 Conn. 483, 489, 441 A.2d 574 (1981). The rule applies whenever a verdict for one party could reasonably be rendered on one or more distinct causes of action; see Matthews v. F.M.C. Corporation, 190 Conn. 700, 706, 462 A.2d 376 (1983); or distinct defenses. See Royal Homes, Inc. v. Dalene Hardwood Flooring Co., 151 Conn. 463, 466, 199 A.2d 698 (1964). A party desiring to avoid the effects of the general verdict rule may elicit the specific grounds for the verdict by submitting interrogatories to the jury. Alternatively, if the action is in separate counts, a party may seek separate verdicts on each of the counts. Ziman v. Whitley, 110 Conn. 108, 113-15, 147 A. 370 (1929). Finley v. Aetna Life & Casualty Co., [supra, 202 Conn. at 202-203, 520 A.2d 208]." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Curry v. Burns, supra, 27 Conn.App. 441 n. 3, 606 A.2d 731.

In Finley, the plaintiff filed a one count complaint for breach of an employment contract, raising two principal claims: (1) that a contract existed; and (2) that the defendant's termination of the plaintiff's employment constituted a breach. The defendant's answer denied both claims, placing them both in issue. Finley v. Aetna Life & Casualty Co., supra, 202 Conn. at 201, 520 A.2d 208. No interrogatories were submitted to the jury, which returned a general verdict for the defendant. Id. On appeal, the plaintiff attacked only the trial court's instructions on the first claim. We held that the general verdict rule precluded our consideration of the plaintiff's claims regarding the instructions and required that the judgment of the trial court rendered upon the general verdict be affirmed. Id., at 204, 520 A.2d 208.

We acknowledged in Finley that the general verdict rule does not apply if "a plaintiff submits to the jury several different specifications of negligent conduct in support of a single cause of action for negligence...." Id., at 203, 520 A.2d 208. The rationale for declining to apply the rule in such a situation "is that 'the various grounds of negligence alleged are often so interlocked as to make it difficult to consider them separately,' and formulating interrogatories to obtain separate findings on the various claims would 'complicate the work of court, jury and counsel.' Ziman v. Whitley, supra, [110 Conn. at] 115 ." Id., 202 Conn. at 203, 520 A.2d 208. We also acknowledged, however, that where a plaintiff submits separate causes of action to a jury, the general verdict rule does apply, "whether or not the claims are pleaded in separate counts. [Ziman v. Whitley, supra, 110 Conn. at] 116-17 ." Id.

We reasoned in Finley that "[t]he application of the general verdict rule, however, does not depend on the niceties of pleading but on the distinctness and severability of the claims and defenses raised at trial." Id. "[I]t is the distinctness of the defenses raised, and not the form of the pleading, that is the decisive test governing the applicability of the general verdict rule. Meglio v. Comeau, 137 Conn. 551, 553-54, 79 A.2d 187 (1951). 'If the defenses are clearly distinct, the fact that one has not been specially pleaded ... will not prevent the application of the rule.' Royal Homes, Inc. v. Dalene Hardwood Flooring Co., supra, [151 Conn. at] 466 ; accord LaFleur v. Farmington River Power Co., 187 Conn. 339, 342, 445 A.2d 924 (1982); Henry A. Finman & Son, Inc. v. Connecticut Truck & Trailer Service Co., 169 Conn. 407, 410, 363 A.2d 86 (1975)." Finley v. Aetna Life & Casualty Co., supra, at 203-204, 520 A.2d 208. Under this analysis, the defendant's denial of both the plaintiff's claims--existence of a contract, and a breach thereof--"presented the jury with distinct and severable defenses to the plaintiff's claims." Id., at 204, 520 A.2d 208. Because the plaintiff had not requested interrogatories "in order to obtain separate jury findings on the [two] controverted issues," the general verdict rule applied, precluding consideration of the plaintiff's claims of error regarding the trial court's instructions on whether a contract existed, and the "verdict for the defendant [had to] be sustained." Id.

Against this background, the plaintiff in this case argues that: (1) Finley notwithstanding, for purposes of the general verdict rule mere denials are not "distinct defenses"; and (2) in the alternative, the "defenses" in this case were interlocked and, therefore, Finley is distinguishable. See Hall v. Burns, 213 Conn. 446, 484-85 n. 9, 569 A.2d 10 (1990) (in action under § 13a-144, denial of both defect in highway and that defect was proximate cause not distinct and severable defenses for purposes of general verdict rule). The defendant responds that his denial of both the highway defect claimed by the plaintiff and the adequacy of the statutory notice given by her raised distinct and severable defenses, and that, therefore, the Appellate Court properly applied the general verdict rule. The amicus curiae, The Connecticut Trial Lawyers Association, argues that: (1) the defendant's denial did not raise distinct and severable defenses; and (2) in the alternative, we should overrule Finley. ²

We agree with the defendant that his denial at trial of the claims that he had failed to perform his statutory duty to maintain the highway, and that the plaintiff had given him adequate statutory notice, raised separate and distinct factual issues such that, under Finley, the general verdict rule would apply. We agree with the plaintiff and the amicus, however, that Finley extended the general verdict rule farther than is wise, and that it should therefore be overruled.

I

The general verdict rule has deep roots in our jurisprudence. It was first articulated by Chief Justice Swift in 1817: "[I]t may be remarked, that though in England the rule has prevailed, that where there are several counts in a declaration, and a general verdict is found, if any of the counts are bad, the verdict shall be set aside, because it cannot be known, that the damages were not assessed on the bad counts; yet in this state the practice has been different; and it has ever been considered to be the rule, that if any of the counts are good, it shall be presumed the damages were assessed on those counts, and the verdict shall stand.... The most eminent jurists in England have lamented that the rule was ever established there; as verdicts have...