Haynes v. City of Middletown
Decision Date | 22 June 2010 |
Docket Number | No. 30964.,30964. |
Citation | 122 Conn.App. 72,997 A.2d 636 |
Parties | Tracey HAYNES et al.v.CITY OF MIDDLETOWN. |
Court | Connecticut Court of Appeals |
122 Conn.App. 72
997 A.2d 636
Tracey HAYNES et al.
v.
CITY OF MIDDLETOWN.
No. 30964.
Appellate Court of Connecticut.
Argued March 9, 2010.
Decided June 22, 2010.
Matthew Dallas Gordon, with whom was Deirdre D. Stokes, West Hartford, for the appellee (defendant).
ALVORD, J.
The named plaintiff, Tracey Haynes, filed this action as parent and next friend of the plaintiff, Jasmon Vereen,1 her then minor son, and on her own behalf, for his medical expenses, against the defendant city of Middletown for injuries the plaintiff sustained when a fellow student pushed him into a broken locker in the men's locker room at Middletown High School. The plaintiffs appeal from the judgment of the trial court granting the defendant's motion to set aside the jury verdict in favor of the plaintiff in the amount of $30,000.2 On appeal, the plaintiffs claim that the court improperly set aside the verdict on the ground of governmental immunity because (1) the defendant waived that defense by failing to request a jury charge on municipal immunity and (2) there was sufficient evidence of imminent harm for the plaintiff's claim to fall within the identifiable person, imminent harm exception to the immunity generally afforded municipalities for the negligent performance of discretionary acts. We conclude that the court properly set aside the jury verdict on the ground of governmental immunity, although we reach that conclusion for reasons other than those stated by the court in its decision.3
The following facts reasonably could have been found by the jury. On March 15, 2005, the plaintiff and other students at Middletown High School were in the men's locker room after their physical education class. They had approximately five minutes to change out of their gym clothes before they were required to leave for their next scheduled class.4 Despite a written policy against horseplay in the locker rooms and gymnasium areas given in a handout to the students taking physical education classes at the beginning of each school year, the plaintiff and some of the other students began engaging in
The plaintiffs commenced the present action against the defendant seeking monetary damages. In their complaint filed March 30, 2007, they alleged that the plaintiff was a student at Middletown High School, that he was in the school's locker room with other students on March 15, 2005, for a physical education class, that there was a broken locker with an exposed jagged and rusty edge in that room, that the locker had been in that condition for a period long enough for the exposed metal to have become rusty and that the plaintiff was injured when he was pushed into the broken locker during school hours. The complaint alleged that the defendant and its agents, servants or employees 5 were negligent,6 and that the action was being brought pursuant to General Statutes § 52-557n.7 The defendant denied the plaintiffs' allegations of negligence and pleaded special defenses of governmental immunity and comparative negligence. The plaintiffs replied to the defendant's special defenses with a general denial.
The case was tried before a jury on November 21, 2008. In support of their negligence claim, the plaintiffs presented
Following the conclusion of the evidence and the parties' closing arguments, the court charged the jury on the law of negligence and comparative negligence. In that charge, the court recited seven of the nine claims of negligence set forth in the plaintiffs' complaint. The court omitted the allegations in the complaint that the broken locker violated basic safety codes and presented a danger foreseeable to injure young men such as the plaintiff and that the defendant failed to make proper and reasonable inspection. See footnote 6 of this opinion. The court did not give an instruction on the defendant's special defense of governmental immunity, nor did it give an instruction on the identifiable person, imminent harm exception to municipal immunity. Neither party had requested instructions addressed to governmental immunity or to the exceptions to governmental immunity, and neither party objected to the court's charge as given.
In addition to the exhibits admitted during the trial, the jurors received agreed on verdict forms and jury interrogatories prior to their deliberations. Again, none of the interrogatories addressed the issue of governmental immunity or an exception to that immunity. On November 25, 2008, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff and awarded him damages.9 In the interrogatories, the jury indicated that the defendant was negligent, that its negligence was the proximate cause of the plaintiff's injury and that the plaintiff was 33 percent liable for his own injury. On December 2, 2008, the defendant, pursuant to Practice Book §§ 16-35 and 16-37, filed a motion to set aside the verdict and to render judgment in favor of the defendant, which the court granted. The court concluded that “governmental immunity insulates the [defendant] from the claim and verdict in this case.” This appeal followed.
“The trial court possesses inherent power to set aside a jury verdict which, in the court's opinion, is against the law or the evidence.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Auster v. Norwalk United Methodist Church, 94 Conn.App. 617, 620, 894 A.2d 329 (2006), aff'd, 286 Conn. 152, 943 A.2d 391 (2008). In the present case, we conclude that the court properly set aside the jury verdict because the verdict was against the law. We reach that conclusion because the defendant specially pleaded and proved that it was entitled to governmental immunity, but the plaintiffs failed to plead an exception to discretionary act immunity under § 52-557n(a)(2)(B) in their reply to the defendant's special defense.10
“The general rule is that governments and their agents are immune from liability for acts conducted in performance of their official duties. The common-law doctrine of governmental immunity has been statutorily enacted and is now largely codified in General Statutes § 52-557n.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Martin v. Westport, 108 Conn.App. 710, 729, 950 A.2d 19 (2008). Section 52-557n(a)(1) sets forth the circumstances under which a municipality will be held liable for damages to a person. This statute provides in relevant part: “Except as otherwise provided by law, a political subdivision of the state shall be liable for damages to...
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Haynes v. City of Middletown
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