Haynes v. City of Middletown

Decision Date22 June 2010
Docket NumberNo. 30964.,30964.
Citation122 Conn.App. 72,997 A.2d 636
PartiesTracey HAYNES et al.v.CITY OF MIDDLETOWN.
CourtConnecticut 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.


997 A.2d 636
Michael L. Oh, with whom, on the brief, were William F. Gallagher, New Haven, and Mark A. Balaban, Middletown, for the appellants (plaintiffs).

Matthew Dallas Gordon, with whom was Deirdre D. Stokes, West Hartford, for the appellee (defendant).
997 A.2d 637
DiPENTIMA, BEACH and ALVORD, Js.*

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

997 A.2d 638
horseplay. They were swinging each other around and trying to throw each other to the ground. One of the students pushed the plaintiff into a jagged, broken locker that, according to the testimony of two of the witnesses, had been in that condition since the fall of 2004. The metal of the locker cut the plaintiff's arm. Although he does not plan on having plastic surgery, the injury left a scar.

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

997 A.2d 639
two witnesses in addition to the plaintiff and submitted medical records, a student accident report and various photographs of the plaintiff's injury and the locker as full exhibits. At the close of the plaintiffs' case, the defendant moved for a directed verdict on the ground that the plaintiffs had presented no evidence to show that the alleged actions of the defendant were governed by any policies or procedures, as alleged in their complaint. The defendant argued that the lack of any such evidence demonstrated that the alleged negligent actions were discretionary and not ministerial, and that the doctrine of governmental immunity therefore would bar the plaintiffs' recovery. Counsel for the plaintiffs responded that “there is no question that this would be discretionary. It's not ministerial.” He then argued that the identifiable person, imminent harm exception would apply because the “condition of the lockers ... presented an imminent harm to [an] identifiable class of victims ... the students in the locker room.” The defendant responded that the identifiable person, imminent harm exception solely applied to municipal employees and that it did not apply when the municipality is the only named defendant in a negligence action.8 The court reserved judgment on the motion, and the defendant then presented its case to the jury.

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.

997 A.2d 640

“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...

To continue reading

Request your trial
19 cases
  • Haynes v. City of Middletown
    • United States
    • Connecticut Supreme Court
    • November 4, 2014
    ...not pleaded the imminent harm to identifiable persons exception in its reply to the defendant's special defense. Haynes v. Middletown, 122 Conn.App. 72, 82, 997 A.2d 636 (2010). The plaintiffs then appealed to this court, which reversed the judgment of the Appellate Court and remanded the c......
  • State v. Dort
    • United States
    • Connecticut Supreme Court
    • December 30, 2014
    ...to the immunity generally afforded municipalities for the negligent performance of discretionary acts.” Haynes v. Middletown, 122 Conn.App. 72, 73, 997 A.2d 636 (2010). The Appellate Court ultimately affirmed the judgment of the trial court on a third ground, concluding that “the plaintiffs......
  • Chase v. Nodine's Smokehouse, Inc.
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut
    • January 22, 2019
    ...to raise. The two cases cited by the Town Defendants do not suggest otherwise.Defendants rely on Haynes v. City of Middletown , 122 Conn.App. 72, 997 A.2d 636, 641 (2010), rev'd , 306 Conn. 471, 50 A.3d 880, 882 (2012), and Kajic v. Marquez , HHDCV166065320S, 2017 WL 4399631, at *9 (Conn. S......
  • Mills v. Solution, LLC
    • United States
    • Connecticut Court of Appeals
    • September 11, 2012
    ...where the source of the alleged duty vests discretion with the official. 13. The municipal defendants, relying on Haynes v. Middletown, 122 Conn.App. 72, 80, 997 A.2d 636, cert. granted, 298 Conn. 907, 3 A.3d 70 (2010), assert that the plaintiff may not invoke the pecuniary interest excepti......
  • Request a trial to view additional results

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT