DeJesus v. Craftsman Machinery Co.

• Decision Date: 04 October 1988
• Docket Number: No. 5468,5468
• Court: Connecticut Court of Appeals
• Parties: Isaac DeJESUS v. CRAFTSMAN MACHINERY COMPANY, et al.

Page 736

548 A.2d 736

16 Conn.App. 558

Isaac DeJESUS v. CRAFTSMAN MACHINERY COMPANY, et al.

No. 5468.

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued April 21, 1988.

Decided Oct. 4, 1988.

Leo Gold, Stamford, for appellant (defendant).

Edward P. McCreery, III, for appellee (named defendant).

Daniel E. Ryan III, Stamford, for appellee (defendant Beaverite Products, Inc.).

Before BIELUCH, STOUGHTON and NORCOTT, JJ.

BIELUCH, Judge.

The plaintiff instituted this action seeking damages for injuries he suffered while operating a crease and punch machine, also known as a platen press. Judgment was rendered for the defendants in accordance with the jury verdict, and the plaintiff appealed. The plaintiff claims that the trial court erred (1) in failing to charge the jury that statements contained in pleadings filed by the defendants against each other could be considered as admissions, (2) in including only two of the three separate theories for imposing liability claimed by the plaintiff in the interrogatories submitted to the jury, (3) in limiting the plaintiff to the introduction of a supplemental answer to an interrogatory without permitting introduction of the original answer, (4) in refusing to grant the plaintiff's motion to set aside the verdict and find that the interrogatory answers constituted the basis for imposing liability on the defendant Craftsman Machinery Company, and (5) in concluding that the defendant Craftsman Machinery Company produced sufficient evidence to overcome the presumption of proximate cause where it had failed to provide warnings on its crease and punch machine. We find no error.

The plaintiff, who crushed his left hand and, in particular, his left thumb, when he caught his hand in a crease and press machine in the course of his employment, brought an action against the named defendant, Craftsman Machinery Company (Craftsman), the corporation that sold the machine to the second defendant involved in this appeal, Beaverite Products, Inc., (Beaverite). ¹ The plaintiff's product liability action also raised claims of liability based on not only strict tort liability, but also negligence, as well as failure to warn or instruct, and breach of implied warranty. Craftsman answered this complaint and, in a special defense filed with its answer, alleged that the plaintiff was contributorily negligent in causing his injuries. The plaintiff denied this allegation.

During the pendency of the plaintiff's action, Craftsman sought to implead Beaverite. ² The motion was granted and Craftsman subsequently filed a third party complaint which alleged that, if Craftsman was found liable to the plaintiff, Beaverite would be liable to Craftsman on the grounds that Beaverite intentionally failed to purchase certain safety controls available to it, that Beaverite was in control of the machine and any negligence or responsibility on the part of Craftsman was passive and the negligence and responsibility of Beaverite was active, and that Beaverite should indemnify Craftsman for any losses or damages.

The plaintiff thereafter amended his complaint to assert a claim against the third party defendant, Beaverite. This additional count, brought against Beaverite as the distributor of the machine, raised claims of strict product liability, negligence, failure to warn or instruct, and breach of implied warranty. Beaverite filed an answer to this amended complaint, and also interposed the special defense that the plaintiff's own negligence contributed to his injuries. The plaintiff denied the allegation contained in this special defense.

A revised third party complaint was filed by Craftsman in response to a request by Beaverite. This complaint specified that the failure of Beaverite to purchase safety controls or devices for the crease and punch machine constituted negligence on its part and, further, that this negligence was the direct, immediate cause of the plaintiff's accident and resulting injuries.

Beaverite subsequently denied the allegations of this revised third party complaint, and filed a counterclaim against Craftsman which sought indemnification, claiming that Beaverite had relied on the expertise of Craftsman when purchasing the crease and punch machine, and that Craftsman, which was in exclusive control of the refurbishing and conditioning of the machine, had negligently sold a defective machine, had failed to install safety devices, and had failed to warn the plaintiff's employer, East Coast Loose Leaf, Inc., regarding the machine's defective condition. Beaverite also filed a revised answer and special defenses to the plaintiff's amended complaint, adding the special defense that the plaintiff's claims were barred by the statute of limitations. Craftsman filed an answer to the counterclaim interposed by Beaverite, and, by way of special defenses, alleged that Beaverite was negligent in failing to exercise reasonable care to protect the use of the crease and punch machine, and that Beaverite's agents and employees had removed the hand safety guard on the machine. Beaverite denied these allegations.

The plaintiff filed a final amended complaint, ³ and the matter went to trial. On August 7, 1986, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the defendants. This verdict was based on interrogatories submitted by the court to the jury. ⁴ The plaintiff moved that the court (1) set aside the verdict as to both defendants, (2) render judgment as to liability against the defendant Craftsman, and (3) order a new trial as to the defendant Craftsman limited to the amount of damages. The motion was denied, and this appeal from the judgment rendered on the verdict followed.

I

The plaintiff claims first that the trial court erred in failing to charge the jury that the various allegations contained in the third party pleadings filed by the two defendants against each other could be deemed as admissions against the respective defendants. This issue raises the question of whether statements made in the context of a third party action can be used as admissions by the plaintiff in the original action. We hold that they cannot.

It is a general rule that "statements in withdrawn or superseded pleadings, including complaints, may be considered as evidential admissions by the party making them, just as would any extrajudicial statements of the same import." Dreier v. Upjohn Co., 196 Conn. 242, 244, 492 A.2d 164 (1985). Given that the statements have some probative value, the circumstances under which they are made, as with any other "admission," go to the weight to be accorded the statements, rather than to their admissibility. Id. at 247, 492 A.2d 164; Stitham v. LeWare, 134 Conn. 681, 684, 60 A.2d 658 (1948); see also C. Tait & J. LaPlante, Connecticut Evidence (2d. Ed.) § 6.7.1, p. 134. The exclusion of "admissions contained in earlier pleadings would make the filing of a complaint serve merely as notice of an intent to investigate the cause of an injury rather than as a 'plain and concise statement of the material facts on which the pleader relies' to invoke the court's jurisdiction. Practice Book §§ 108, 131. Such a result would extend the effect of our liberal pleading rules far beyond the policy supporting them." Dreier v. Upjohn, supra, 196 Conn. at 247, 492 A.2d 164.

Statements contained in third party pleadings are an exception to this general rule. Such statements are made, arguendo, to discuss the hypothetical legal consequences if a certain fact should be determined by the trier, and are not admissions of the facts in question. The third party complaint of Craftsman, and the counterclaim filed in response by Beaverite, claimed indemnification if a verdict in the plaintiff's favor were reached by the jury. The allegations presented in the third party pleadings as to the condition of the crease and punch machine, and the lack of a hand safety guard, are not probative on the underlying issue in the plaintiff's action of whether this machine was dangerous and defective due to the missing guard. Clearly, the allegations contained in the third party pleadings were contingent and premised on the jury's finding against either defendant on the initial question of whether the machine was in a defective and unreasonably dangerous condition when it was sold and distributed due to the lack of a hand safety guard. Third party pleadings are a tool for the assistance of the trier of fact in the determination of ultimate responsibility, if any, for proven liability and damages under the plaintiff's complaint. The cause of action alleged in the pleadings between the impleading party and the impleaded party is separate from, and not probative of, the proof of the plaintiff's cause of action which must stand on its own facts within the allegations of his complaint.

Both General Statutes § 52-102a and Connecticut Practice Book § 117 provide that a defendant in any civil action may serve, as a third party plaintiff, a complaint upon any person not a party to the action "who is or may be liable for all or part of the plaintiff's claim." (Emphasis added.) Such a third party defendant impleaded by the original defendant thereafter has all the remedies available to an original defendant, including the right to assert a counterclaim against the third party plaintiff. General Statutes § 52-102a(b).

To allow the admission into evidence of statements by the third party plaintiff on his cause of action contained in third party pleadings would defeat the purposes of these procedural devices, which include, as is relevant to this case, the acceleration of the accrual of the right to assert a claim against an impleaded party. Schurgast v. Schumann, 156 Conn. 471, 484, 242 A.2d 695 (1968). This would be true in an indemnity obligation, where a necessary element of a claim for indemnification is an allegation that the indemnitor was negligent, and that the indemnitor's negligence was the direct, immediate cause of the plaintiff...