Hageman v. Freeburg

Decision Date02 August 1932
CourtConnecticut Supreme Court
PartiesHAGEMAN v. FREEBURG et al.

Appeal from Superior Court, Hartford County; Allyn L. Brown, Judge.

Action by Martin Hageman against Andrew S. Freeburg and others to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by defendants' negligence. Verdict and judgment for plaintiff against named defendant only, and such defendant appeals.

No error.

Ralph O. Wells and William S. Locke, both of Hartford, for appellant.

Edward S. Pomeranz, of Hartford (S. Polk Waskowitz and George Miske both of Hartford, on the brief), for appellee.

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

MALTBIE, C.J.

The plaintiff, a pedestrian, was standing upon the sidewalk at the entrance to a parking station for automobiles. The defendant Freeburg had driven an automobile into the station and left it there to be placed by the attendant. The foot brake had become disconnected just before he drove into the station and the plaintiff claimed the emergency brake also was defective. While being placed by an attendant at the station, the automobile, due to the defective brakes, rolled down a slight incline onto the sidewalk, striking the plaintiff. He brought this action against Freeburg and the proprietors of the station, the jury returned a verdict against the former but in favor of the latter and Freeburg has appealed. We shall hereafter refer to him as the defendant.

The claim of error most stressed is the charge of the trial court as to damages recoverable. The plaintiff was sixty-eight years old; he had suffered a previous accident in 1927; and the claim of the defendant was that the incapacities and physical impairments of which he complained were attributable to this accident and to advancing senility rather than to any injury received by being struck by the defendant's car. The complaint listed in considerable detail the ill results claimed by the plaintiff to be due to the injuries involved in this accident, and the trial court repeated its allegations to the jury, telling them that the matters alleged were all proper for their consideration. The defendant claims that the charge was defective and inadequate, particularly in that there were duplications in the elements of damages involved in the plaintiff's claim; in that the charge permitted an award of damages for bruises, contusions, and other physical injuries claimed to have resulted as well as for the suffering incident to them in that it did not list the true elements of recoverable damages or caution the jury as to the necessity of distinguishing between the results of the accident and the physical impairments and incapacity due to other causes; and in that it did not give the jury as adequate a standard for measuring the recoverable damages as it should. All the elements of damages mentioned in the charge were proper for the jury to...

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11 cases
  • Kelly v. Ivler
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Connecticut
    • May 4, 1982
    ..."To sustain an award of substantial damages requires a showing of an actual, as opposed to a mere technical injury. Hageman v. Freeburg, 115 Conn. 469, 472, 162 A. 21 (1932); Beattie v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 84 Conn. 555, 559, 80 A. 709 (1911)." Mackin v. Mackin, 186 Conn. 185, 190, ......
  • Green v. Donroe
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Connecticut
    • February 16, 1982
    ...actual damage, it is at that point that we part company because this statement is contrary to Connecticut law. In Hageman v. Freeburg, 115 Conn. 469, 162 A. 21 (1932), a case involving a negligence action for personal injuries, speaking through Chief Justice Maltbie, we stated, at pages 471......
  • Urban v. Hartford Gas Co.
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Connecticut
    • December 9, 1952
    ...Urban was entitled to at least nominal damages, since, in this state, every invasion of a legal right imports damage. Hageman v. Freeburg, 115 Conn. 469, 471, 162 A. 21. The complaint alleges a good cause of action grounded in This brings us, then, to the more vital claim advanced by the de......
  • Mackin v. Mackin
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Connecticut
    • February 2, 1982
    ...To sustain an award of substantial damages requires a showing of an actual, as opposed to a mere technical injury. Hageman v. Freeburg, 115 Conn. 469, 472, 162 A. 21 (1932); Beattie v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 84 Conn. 555, 559, 80 A. 709 (1911). Unfortunately such showing is lacking in......
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