Esposito v. Commissioner of Transp.

• Citation: 356 A.2d 175,167 Conn. 439
• Parties: Joseph N. ESPOSITO v. COMMISSIONER OF TRANSPORTATION.
• Decision Date: 31 December 1974
• Court: Supreme Court of Connecticut

Page 175

356 A.2d 175

167 Conn. 439

Joseph N. ESPOSITO v. COMMISSIONER OF TRANSPORTATION.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Dec. 31, 1974.

Alfonse C. Fasano, New Haven, with whom was Roland D. Fasano, New Haven, for appellee (plaintiff).

Before HOUSE, C.J., and SHAPIRO, LOISELLE, MacDONALD and BOGDANSKI, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

The defendant has appealed from a judgment rendered by a state referee exercising the power of the Superior Court reassessing at $342,800 the damages sustained by the plaintiff in the taking of his property by the defendant by eminent domain. The assessment of damages filed by the defendant for the taking assessed the damages due the plaintiff at $203,920.

The finding of fact from which the referee reached his conclusions is set forth in sixty-one paragraphs. The defendant has assigned error claiming that the referee has refused to find sixty-one paragraphs of his draft finding which he claims were admitted or undisputed or that those findings of fact were reasonably necessary in order to have the questions of law properly reviewed. In addition, the defendant has attacked eighteen paragraphs of the referee's finding of facts as being found without evidence. Also, the defendant has assigned error directed to two of the three conclusions reached by the referee on the claim that they were factually unsupported. The defendant has thus made a wholesale attack on the referee's finding. Such an attack on a finding rarely produces beneficial results and in effect the defendant seeks to have this court retry the issues. This is not our function. Branford Sewer Authority v. Williams, 159 Conn. 421, 424, 270 A.2d 546. The conclusions reached by the trier must stand unless they are legally or logically inconsistent with the facts found or unless they involve the application of some erroneous rule of law material to the case. Textron, Inc. v. Wood, 167 Conn. 334, 355 A.2d 307; Schnier v. Ives, 162 Conn. 171, 177, 293 A.2d 1; Brauer v. Freccia, 159 Conn. 289, 293, 268 A.2d 645.

After a careful examination of the record, briefs and the plaintiff's appendix, the defendant not having submitted an appendix, we conclude that the defendant is not entitled to any of the corrections sought in the finding of facts. As to the conclusions under attack, '(t)he trier arrives at his own conclusion as to the value of land by weighing the opinion of the appraisers, the claims of the parties in the light of all the circumstances in evidence bearing on value...