Harry A. Finman & Son, Inc. v. Connecticut Truck & Trailer Service Co.

• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: Before HOUSE; BOGDANSKI
• Citation: Harry A. Finman & Son, Inc. v. Connecticut Truck & Trailer Service Co., 363 A.2d 86, 169 Conn. 407 (Conn. 1975)
• Decision Date: 26 August 1975
• Parties: HARRY A. FINMAN AND SON, INC. v. The CONNECTICUT TRUCK AND TRAILER SERVICE COMPANY et al.

Page 86

363 A.2d 86

169 Conn. 407

HARRY A. FINMAN AND SON, INC. v. The CONNECTICUT TRUCK AND TRAILER SERVICE COMPANY et al.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Aug. 26, 1975.

Robert B. Cohen, Hartford, for appellant (plaintiff).

John F. Wynne, New Haven, for appellee (named defendant).

Charles W. Page, Hartford, with whom was Raymond B. Green, Hartford, for appellee (defendant Hiab Hydraulics, Inc.).

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

BOGDANSKI, Associate Justice.

The plaintiff brought this action in the first and second counts against the defendant Hiab Hydraulics, Inc., hereinafter referred to as Hiab, seeking damages for the breach of an alleged exclusive distributorship contract. In the third count, the plaintiff sought to recover damages from the defendant The Connecticut Truck and Trailer Service Company, hereinafter referred to as Truck and Trailer, for willful interference with the contractual relationship between the plaintiff and the defendant Hiab. The jury returned a verdict for both defendants and the court denied the plaintiff's motion to set aside the verdict. From the judgment rendered, the plaintiff has appealed to this court, assigning error in the court's charge to the jury; in the admission of certain testimony; in allowing the special defenses of the defendant Hiab to be included in the pleadings that were submitted to the jury; and in refusing to submit to the jury a separate verdict form for the plaintiff against the defendant Truck and Trailer alone.

The major issue briefed by the plaintiff concerns the court's charge to the jury regarding the terminability of a distributorship contract which is indefinite as to the date and manner of termination. That assignment of error, however, assumes that the jury found there was a valid contract. In its pleadings, the defendant Hiab denied the existence of any contract and, in a special defense, alleged that any agreement between it and the plaintiff was unenforceable for lack of mutuality of obligation. The plaintiff's claims of proof reveal that it relied on oral negotiations, telephone calls and subsequent conduct of the parties to prove the existence of its alleged distributorship contract with the defendant Hiab.

Under those circumstances, whether a contract existed was a question of fact for the trier. Randolph Construction Co. v. Kings East Corporation, 165 Conn. 269, 277, 334 A.2d 464; Molloy v. Rourke, 83 Conn. 196, 199, 76 A. 517. The trial court submitted that issue to the jury, charging them on the legal requirements for an enforceable bilateral contract and concluding as follows: 'Now, if you should find that there was no contract between the plaintiff and HIAB Hydraulics, that, of course, would end the case. If there was no contract, obviously, there could be no breach and the plaintiff could not have been damaged and your verdict would have to be for the defendants.' No error assigned to that portion of the charge has been pursued by the plaintiff in its brief, and no objection was raised at the trial to the charge of the trial court which left the jury to decide whether there was an enforceable contract.

The verdict for the defendants in this case was a general one, and the presumption is that the jury found all issues of fact in favor of the defendants. Hally v. Hospital of St. Raphael, 162 Conn. 352, 362, 294 A.2d 305; Kelly v. Bliss, 160 Conn. 128, 131, 273 A.2d 873; Royal Homes, Inc. v. Dalene Hardwood Flooring Co., 151 Conn. 463, 466, 199 A.2d 698; Dillon v. Tarantino, 149 Conn. 377, 380, 179 A.2d 833. Under the defendant Hiab's answer, which consisted of simple denials, and under its special defense, there were two distinct defenses advanced at the trial, the first being that there was no enforceable contract, and the second being that, if a contract did exist, it was terminable at will and, therefore, not breached. 'The fact that there were . . . (those) two distinct defenses brought into operation the rule expressed in Meglio v. Comeau, 137 Conn. 551, 553, 79 A.2d 187, 188: 'The Connecticut rule may be stated as follows: If there is no error in the instructions as to one of two distinct defenses, a general verdict for the defendant should be sustained. . . . To euqlify under this definition, the defenses must be distinct. That is the decisive test.' If the defenses are clearly distinct, the fact that one has not been specially pleaded, though it should have been, will not prevent the application of the rule. Knight Realty Co. v. Caserta, 126 Conn. 162, 168, 10 A.2d 597; Altieri v. Peattie Motors, Inc., 121 Conn. 316, 320, 185 A. 75; Hasler v. T. H. Cantly & Co., 138 Conn. 343, 346, 84 A.2d 577; Hardy v. Weitzman, 147 Conn. 727, 728, 162 A.2d 507.' Royal Homes, Inc. v. Dalene Hardwood Flooring Co., 151 Conn. 463, 466, 199 A.2d 698, 700.

The ground or grounds on which the verdict rests is unknown, and no interrogatories were submitted by the plaintiff which could have protected it from the implications of the general verdict rule. See Practice Book § 247; Hally v. Hospital of St. Raphael, 162 Conn. 352, 362, 294 A.2d 305; Ziman v. Whitley, 110 Conn. 108, 113, 147 A. 370; Ford v. H. W. Dubiskie & Co., 105 Conn. 572, 582, 136 A. 560. We must presume, therefore, that the jury found there was no enforceable contract, and the curative effect of the general verdict rule makes it unnecessary to decide whether the trial court erred in charging as it did on the terminability of the alleged distributorship contract.

The plaintiff also assigns error in the admission of testimony regarding the custom and usage in the trade of terminating distributorship contracts. Those objections, however, go to the credibility and weight of the evidence and not to its admissibility. The defendant was permitted to bring out weaknesses in the testimony through cross-examination and the jury were instructed to decide what weight to give the evidence. There was no error in the evidentiary rulings.

The plaintiff next claims that it was reversible error for the trial court to submit to the jury the entire amended answer of the defendant Hiab. That answer included three special defenses which, in addition to the claim that there was no mutuality of obligation, raised defenses under both the Statute of Frauds and the antitrust laws. It is true, as the plaintiff asserts, that no issue foreign to the facts in evidence should be submitted to the jury. Intelisano v. Greenwell, 155 Conn. 436, 443, 232 A.2d 490. In this case, however, the trial court withdrew those special defenses from the jury's consideration in the following charge: 'As to those defenses, ladies and gentlemen, pay no attention to them. They involve legal problems which I have to decide. They're not of your concern, so you can just forget about those.' Any possibility that the jury could have been misled by the submission to them of the entire amended answer of the defendant Hiab was cured by the court's specific instruction that they were not to consider the special defenses.

The plaintiff's final claim concerns the trial court's refusal to submit to the jury a separate verdict form in favor of the plaintiff and against the defendant Truck and Trailer alone. Upon retiring, the jury was presented with three verdict forms: one for the plaintiff against both defendants; one for both defendants against the plaintiff; and one for the plaintiff against the defendant Hiab only. The plaintiff objected and requested that a fourth verdict form be submitted to the jury, arguing that under the pleadings and evidence the jury could properly find that Truck and Trailer had interfered with its contractual relationship, even if the...