Griffin v. Wood

• Decision Date: 17 December 1918
• Citation: 105 A. 354,93 Conn. 99
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: GRIFFIN v. WOOD.

105 A. 354

93 Conn. 99

GRIFFIN v. WOOD.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

December 17, 1918

Appeal from Superior Court, New Haven County; William L. Bennett Judge.

Action by Patrick J. Griffin, administrator, against Morton M. Wood to recover for death by negligence. Judgment for defendant and plaintiff appeals. Error, and new trial ordered.

The plaintiff's intestate, while walking in the highway, was killed by a motorcar operated by the defendant which approached the decedent from behind. The accident occurred about 10 o'clock on a cloudy moonlit night, and at or about the time that another motorcar coming from the opposite direction was passing by the scene of the accident. The highway at that point consisted of a central strip of warrenite 17 feet wide and a strip of gravel 5 feet wide on either side of it. Plaintiff claimed that the decedent and his companions were walking on the right-hand side of the highway, and upon the right-hand side of the strip of gravel, when the defendant's car rushed upon them at high speed without any warning. Defendant claimed that his car was on the right-hand side of the warrenite, and not upon the gravel, that he was proceeding at a moderate rate of speed, that there was ample room on the strip of gravel for pedestrians, and that the decedent, at a moment when the defendant was dazzled by the lights of the other car, suddenly stepped out on the warrenite so far as to be struck by the left-hand forward lamp of the defendant's car, in spite of the defendant's effort to stop. Defendant also claimed, and offered evidence to prove, that the decedent was intoxicated at the time. In regard to this question of intoxication the court charged the jury as follows:

" Here I may refer to you the claims that have been made in regard to the drunkenness of the deceased. Of course, no one has claimed, and no one can claim, that, in and because the deceased was intoxicated, the defendant had a right to run over him. Such, of course, is not the law. You will, of course, first determine, in looking at this part of the case, whether any intoxication has been proven, or rather whether the plaintiff has shown to you by a fair preponderance of evidence that the deceased was not intoxicated at the time; *** but, however that may be, of course that is a matter for you to decide, intoxication has no particular bearing upon the matter, except possibly in one way: It is not whether the man was intoxicated, but his position upon the highway, which is

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