Dickson v. Yale University

• Decision Date: 06 May 1954
• Citation: 105 A.2d 463,141 Conn. 250
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: DICKSON v. YALE UNIVERSITY. Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut

Page 463

105 A.2d 463

141 Conn. 250

DICKSON v. YALE UNIVERSITY.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

May 6, 1954.

Curtiss K. Thompson, New Haven, with whom, on the brief, were William J. Ryan, Jr., and John H. Weir, New Haven, for appellant-appellee (plaintiff).

Richard H. Bowerman, New Haven, with whom was Morris Tyler, New Haven, for appellant-appellee (defendant).

Before INGLIS, C. J., and BALDWIN, O'SULLIVAN, WYNNE and DALY, JJ.

WYNNE, Associate Justice.

This is a suit for personal injuries in which the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff. On motion the trial court set the verdict aside. The appeal is from this action of the court. The defendant filed a bill of exceptions to certain acts and rulings. A cross appeal was filed attacking the decision of the court denying the defendant's motion for a directed verdict in its favor and denying its motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. The plaintiff's assignment of error is directed solely to the setting aside of the verdict. The defendant's bill of exceptions is predicated on the claim that the court erred in two respects, (1) in permitting the jury to view the premises over the objection of defendant that they were no longer in the condition they were in at the time of the alleged occurrence, and (2) in the court's failure to charge as requested.

There was evidence from which the jury could reasonably have found the following facts: The plaintiff was in attendance at the fifteenth reunion of his class at Yale on June 18, 1949. He was assigned a room on the fourth floor of a dormitory in Pierson College. On the south side of the room was a doorway leading to an area which for the purpose of this appeal is treated as a balcony. Along the outer edges of this balcony there was a parapet eighteen inches high, but no railing or other protection. The parapet was twenty-eight feet above the level of the ground below. About 1:30 a. m. on Sunday, after the class dinner the night before and a typical reunion with a group of classmates, the plaintiff and a companion made their way to their room. Before getting into bed, the plaintiff hung his clothes neatly and brushed his teeth. His mind was clear, there was no thickness in his speech and no hesitation in his movements. He walked well and was in good control of himself. The door to the balcony was left open, the night being warm. About 2 or 2:30 o'clock, an occupant of a room on the ground floor underneath the one occupied by the plaintiff saw the body of the plaintiff fall past his window and heard it land outside. The plaintiff was found lying on the ground directly below the balcony. No sound or scream was heard by anyone before the fall. The plaintiff was grievously injured.

It is conceded that the plaintiff was a business invitee on the premises, that the construction of the premises was in violation of the builsing code of the city of New Haven in that the door opening onto the balcony was not self-closing and in that there was no railing around the balcony, and that such construction constituted negligence on the part of the defendant. On this aspect of the case the sole question is whether the plaintiff sustained his burden of proving that defendant's negligence was a substantial factor in causing his injuries. It is not claimed that contributory negligence was proved. The gist of the defendant's contention is that, inasmuch as there was no evidence as to the movements of the plaintiff between the time he retired for the night and the time his body was seen falling (the plaintiff himself suffered a complete loss of memory ad to this period), it was pure surmise on the part of the jury to conclude that there was any causal relationship between the negligence of the defendant and the fall. The defendant claimed further that proof of its negligence and the presumption of the plaintiff's freedom from contributory negligence, General Statutes, § 7836, have no probative effect in establishing proximate cause.

The law of this state is that in a civil case proof of a material fact by inference from circumstantial evidence need not be so conclusive as to exclude every other hypothesis. It is sufficient if the evidence produces in the mind of the trier a reasonable belief of the probability of the existence of the material fact. LeBlanc v. Grillo, 129 Conn. 378, 381, 28 A.2d 127. In White v. Herbst, 128 Conn. 659, 25 A.2d 68, the plaintiff's decedent had left a relative's home on the second floor of a tenement owned by the defendant at about 9 p. m. Approximately an hour later, his body was found at the foot of the stairway. There was evidence that the stairway was defective in various respects. There was no evidence as to the cause of the fall. In sustaining a plaintiff's verdict, this court said, 128 Conn. at page 661, 25 A.2d at page 69: '[W]e cannot hold that the jury could not, drawing proper inferences from the facts in evidence, reasonably believe that it was more probable than not that the decedent's fall was due to the defective condition of the stairway.' See also Esserman v. Madden, 123 Conn. 386, 195 A. 739; ...