Evans v. Liguori

• Decision Date: 15 June 1977
• Docket Number: No. 75-296-A,75-296-A
• Parties: Bertha D. EVANS et al. v. Frank LIGUORI et al. ppeal.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 774

374 A.2d 774

118 R.I. 389

Bertha D. EVANS et al. v. Frank LIGUORI et al.

No. 75-296-Appeal.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

June 15, 1977.

[118 R.I. 398] Abedon, Stanzler, Biener, Skolnik & Lipsey, Milton Stanzler, Howard I. Lipsey, Jordan Stanzler, Providence, for plaintiffs.

Hanson, Curran, Bowen & Parks, A. Lauriston Parks, David P. Whitman, Providence, for Anthony Algiere.

Keenan, Rice, Dolan, Reardon & Kiernan, Leonard A. Kiernan, Jr., Providence, for the Town of Westerly.

Cappuccio & Cappuccio, Frank S. Cappuccio, Westerly, for Frank Liguori et al. and Fred Gabrielle.

OPINION

KELLEHER, Justice.

In 1968, the plaintiff, on behalf of herself and her minor children, instituted a wrongful death action against the town of Westerly and five of its police officers. A Superior Court jury returned verdicts in favor of four of the officers and against the fifth officer, Captain Gabrielle, and the town. Each of the "against" verdicts was in the amount of $21,000. Before submitting the case to the jury, the trial justice had reserved his decision on the defendants' motions for a directed verdict. Once the jury had returned its verdicts, the trial justice granted the motions for a directed verdict. Subsequently, the plaintiff moved for a new trial as to the four police officers and an additur against the fifth officer and the town of Westerly. The officer who had been found liable also moved for a new trial. All such motions were denied, and on this pending appeal the only questions before us concern the propriety of the grant of the directed verdict and the denial of the motions for a new trial and the request for an additur. Since our immediate concern is the grant of the directed verdict, our review of the evidence presented at trial will be in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.

The pertinent facts are as follows. During the late morning of January 15, 1968, John J. Evans, a 49-year-old retired Army major, drove his 16-year-old daughter, Nicole, to the town of Westerly to a branch of the Registry of Motor Vehicles, where she was going to obtain a driving permit. Evans at this time was suffering from diabetes mellitus. This condition was of a long-standing nature and so serious that in 1953 he received a medical discharge from the Army. He visited the Veterans' Administration Clinic for periodic checkups and took daily self-injected doses of insulin.

While driving to Westerly from his Warwick home, Evans had acted in a disoriented and confused fashion. When he arrived in Westerly at about 2 p.m., Evans parked his car in front of the town's police station, and in the process he allegedly backed into a car owned by one of the police officers. Evans left his car, walked over to an icy sidewalk, and, as he did so, he slipped and fell. The defendant, Captain Gabrielle, observed what went on, and he issued an order that Evans be brought into the station. The captain, believing Evans to be drunk, ordered him into the interrogation room and requested the daughter to bring her father some coffee. The daughter left the station to obtain the coffee and call her mother. When she returned, she found her father walking out of the station. She notified the captain of this fact, and he dispatched two of his officers outside to retrieve him. Apparently, Evans had missed the first four steps on his way out and was lying on the ground when the officers arrived. A struggle ensued, Evans was handcuffed, and put into a cell. At this point Nicole informed Captain Gabrielle that her father was a diabetic and sick.

When Evans was put into the cell, the officers removed the handcuffs but permitted the prisoner to retain his belt and shoelaces. There was testimony that the standard operating procedures in effect at the Westerly Police Station called for the removal of such articles before a person was locked up.

Evans' wife arrived at the station at 4:30 p.m. In the interim the captain had temporarily left the station, and Sergeant Algiere was manning the desk. Mrs. Evans went to see her husband. He asked her to obtain the services of a physician and an attorney. According to the wife, her husband was disoriented, despondent, and had a fruity smell on his breath. ¹ The wife showed the sergeant her husband's diabetic card and asked him to contact a doctor. Sergeant Algiere replied that he had a diabetic in his family, but he did not "act like" Evans. After further pleading by the wife, the sergeant "tossed" her a phone book and said that she could seek her own assistance. The wife's attempts to procure aid, either medical or legal, proved fruitless.

The family was becoming upset, and the sergeant recommended that it was time for everyone to take a supper break. According to the sergeant, after supper everyone could return to the station, where there would be an extended discussion about the prisoner's present difficulties. The sergeant assured the family that he would watch out for Evans. The Evans family left the station and went to a local restaurant.

Upon their return, they observed Captain Gabrielle running to the cellblock with a pair of scissors. Evans had apparently looped his belt around the center horizontal bar of the cell door and attempted to hang himself. When Evans was freed, his son administered artificial respiration, but to no avail. Evans was dead, and the scene now shifts from the police station to a Washington County courthouse.

Two doctors testified for plaintiff. The first, a pathologist, had conducted an autopsy on Evans. His pathological diagnosis was that Evans had experienced severe diabetes mellitus with acute congestive heart failure. He could not, however, determine the cause of death. The second medical witness for plaintiff was an internist. In answer to a hypothetical question, he testified that in his opinion Evans was suffering from either too much or too little blood sugar on the day in question. He then noted that diabetics in such a condition may become suicidal and/or disoriented and, therefore, there was a causal connection between his putting the belt around his neck and his physical condition.

Having summarized the pertinent evidence, we now turn to the controlling legal principles. When a motion for a directed verdict is made, the trial court, and as noted earlier, this court on review must consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the party against whom the motion is made without weighing the evidence or considering the credibility of the witnesses and extract from that record only those reasonable inferences that support the position of the party opposing the motion, in this case plaintiff. Powers v. Carvalho, R.I., 368 A.2d 1242 (1977); Economou v. Valley Gas Co., 112 R.I. 514, 312 A.2d 581 (1973); Hamrick v. Yellow Cab Co., 111 R.I. 515, 304 A.2d 666 (1973). If there exist issues of fact upon which reasonable men may differ, the trial court has no alternative other than to let the jury decide them.

The trial justice granted the motions for the directed verdict after reaching the following conclusions. There was evidence, he said, that (1) Evans had been assaulted, (2) a request for medical assistance fell on deaf ears, and (3) a departmental policy requiring the removal of certain articles of clothing was violated. The trial justice concluded that Evans took his belt and hung himself. Having decided that Evans had committed suicide, he then ruled that the suicide was an independent intervening cause and, accordingly, was not the foreseeable result of the police officers' conduct. He specifically found that although there may have been a policy to remove a prisoner's belt to protect him, it was not foreseeable that the failure to take Evans'...