Deutsch v. La Bonne

• Decision Date: 03 March 1930
• Citation: 111 Conn. 41,149 A. 244
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: DEUTSCH v. LA BONNE ET AL. VOSNEY v. LA BONNE ET AL. COVALESKI v. LA BONNE ET AL.

149 A. 244

111 Conn. 41

DEUTSCH v. LA BONNE ET AL.

VOSNEY v. LA BONNE ET AL.

COVALESKI v. LA BONNE ET AL.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

March 3, 1930

Appeal from Superior Court, Hartford County; Christopher L. Avery Judge.

Actions in each case for personal injuries and in two for death claimed to have been caused by negligence of the defendants and tried together to a jury, by John Deutsch, administrator and Anthony Vosney and Martin Covaleski, administrator, against George La Bonne and others. Verdict and judgment in each case for plaintiff, and appeal by the defendants.

No error.

Ralph O. Wells and C. B. Prior, both of Hartford, for appellants.

Samuel Rosenthal, of Hartford, and Monroe S. Gordon and Charles W. Tamulonis, both of New Britain, for appellees.

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

HAINES, J.

These three cases arose from a collision of two automobiles on the public highway between Thomaston and Terryville in this state. The car of the defendant George La Bonne, a Chrysler sedan, was being driven westerly by his son Lionel, and the other car, an Essex coach, was being driven easterly by Edward Deutsch, while Adam Covaleski sat at his right on the front seat, and Anthony Vosney sat on the rear seat. All three in this car were injured, and only Vosney survived. The cars came together substantially at the lowest point of a depression in the highway, and both cars were on a down grade as they approached each other about 9 o'clock on the evening of February 17, 1929. The roadway was concrete, eighteen to twenty feet in width. with a center line, and gravel shoulders approximately three to five feet wide, and wooden posts with heavy cable between them, as a guard. It appears from the evidence offered by both parties that, as the defendant's car descended the grade, it was swinging from side to side, and finally struck the fence at its right, and shot across the road to its left, where the two cars came into collision; the impact rendering the occupants of the Essex car unconscious.

It appears from the plaintiffs' evidence that a car occupied by other persons was following the Essex down the grade at the time the defendants' car approached. The plaintiffs claimed the collision was caused solely by the negligence of the driver of the defendant's car, the evidence of the latter being that the temperature was below the freezing point and the weather clear; that, save at a point about three hundred and fifty feet from the point of collision, the road was dry, but at that point there was a patch of smooth ice upon the roadway, and, as the car approached it at about thirty-nine miles per hour, the driver put on his brakes, and the car skidded on the ice, and the driver lost control of it, and could not thereafter, to the time of the collision, regain control. The evidence of the plaintiffs puts the speed of the defendant's car at forty-five to fifty miles per hour, and that of the plaintiffs at twenty to twenty-five miles, the latter slowing down as the defendant's car approached, and pulling off the concrete to the right as far as the fence permitted. Save as to the speeds of the cars and as to the existence of the patch of ice, there seems to be no substantial disagreement on the general situation as above outlined.

There being merely a general denial by way of answer, the issues raised were the actionable negligence of the defendant and the contributory negligence of the plaintiffs, and the jury found for the plaintiffs upon both points. The appeal is based entirely upon the failure of the court to charge upon the doctrine of the last clear chance, and claimed insufficient charges upon proximate cause and contributory negligence. No requests to charge were made by the defendants upon either of these features. The defendant's brief claims no technical error in the charge as given on proximate cause and contributory negligence, but insists that it was inadequate. The contention seems to be that the evidence showed that the defendants' car had gone out of control, and that this fact was obvious to the driver of the plaintiffs' car, whose car was under control, and who could have...