Horvath v. Tontini

• Decision Date: 06 March 1940
• Citation: 126 Conn. 462,11 A.2d 846
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: HORVATH v. TONTINI et al. HOLECZ v. TONTINI et al.

11 A.2d 846

126 Conn. 462

HORVATH v. TONTINI et al.

HOLECZ v. TONTINI et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

March 6, 1940

Appeal from Superior Court, Fairfield County; Arthur F. Ells, Judge.

Two actions by Ignatz Horvath against Ida Tontini and Phillips Petroleum Company to recover damages for personal injuries and by Helen Holecz, administratrix of the estate of Alexander Holecz, against Ida Tontini and Phillips Petroleum Company to recover for the death of plaintiff's intestate, alleged to have been caused by the negligence of the defendants, brought to the superior court and tried to the jury. Verdicts for the plaintiffs in both cases, which the court set aside as to the defendant Phillips Petroleum Company, and the plaintiffs and the defendant Ida Tontini appeal.

Error on plaintiffs' appeals and cases remanded, with direction. No error on defendant Tontini's appeals.

David Goldstein, Sydney P. Simons, and Henry Greenstein, all of Bridgeport, for plaintiffs-appellants.

DeLancey Pelgrift, of Hartford, for named defendant-appellant.

Martin E. Gormley, of New Haven, for appellee Phillips Petroleum Co.

Argued before MALTBIE, C.J., and HINMAN, AVERY, BROWN, and JENNINGS JJ.

HINMAN, Judge.

In the afternoon of July 6, 1938, an automobile owned and driven by Alexander Holecz, in which four other men were riding proceeding westerly on the road from Shelton toward Bridgeport, came into collision with a car owned by Ida Tontini and operated by her son, and then with a truck of the Phillips Petroleum Company, both of which latter vehicles were traveling easterly. All five occupants of Holecz's car were severely injured and he and one other died as a result. In actions brought on behalf of the estates of the two deceased and by the other three, against Mrs. Tontini and the Phillips Company, tried together, verdicts for the plaintiffs against both defendants were returned but, on motion, they were set aside as to the Phillips Company. From this action the plaintiffs appealed, as did Mrs. Tontini from the denial of her motions to set aside the verdicts as against her.

The trial court's memorandum, as to the verdict against the Phillips Company, indicates that it regarded the plaintiffs' evidence tending to support it as so slight that it held that the verdict, as to it, was ‘ not founded upon reasonable evidence’ but apparently was ‘ a result of prejudice or sympathy.’ The tenability of this conclusion as justification for the court's action is the determinative issue on the plaintiffs' appeals. A trial court in passing upon a motion to set aside a verdict and this court in reviewing its action thereon are limited by established legal principles. Upon issues regarding which, on the evidence, there is room for reasonable difference of opinion among fair-minded men, the conclusion of a jury, if one at which honest men acting fairly and intelligently might arrive reasonably, must stand, even though the opinion of the trial court and this court be that a different result should have been reached. The credibility of each witness and the weight to be accorded to his testimony is for the jury and the evidence must be given the most favorable construction in support of the verdict of which it is reasonably capable. Anderson v. Colucci, 119 Conn. 241, 244, 175 A. 681; Toth v. Perry, 120 Conn. 680, 681, 182 A. 464; Porcello v. Finnan, 113 Conn. 730, 733, 156 A. 863. Cases sometimes occur, however, in which it is so manifest that the jury must have been moved by inadmissible influences such as prejudice, partiality or excessive sympathy that a verdict may be set aside even if there was some evidence in favor of the prevailing party. Mlynar v. A. H. Merriman & Sons, Inc., 114 Conn. 647, 650, 159 A. 658; Jump v. Ensign-Bickford Co., 117 Conn. 110, 115, 167 A. 90; Roma v. Thames River Specialties Co., 90 Conn. 18, 20, 96 A. 169. Exceptional instances in which this may be done are illustrated by the cases above cited, where the only testimony supporting the verdict was in conflict with indisputable physical facts or was otherwise demonstrated to be either intentionally or unintentionally untrue, leaving no real question of conflict of evidence for the jury concerning which reasonable minds could reasonably differ. Mlynar v. A. H. Merriman & Sons, Inc., supra, 114 Conn. 650, 159 A. 658. There also may be cases in which the verdict is so palpably against the evidence as to warrant a conclusion that the jury has been so swayed by prejudice or sympathy as to disregard the decisive preponderance. Levy v. Bromberg, 108 Conn. 202, 204, 142 A. 836; State v. Chin Lung, 106 Conn. 701, 704, 139 A. 91.

Although we may make reasonable assumptions in support of a trial court's action in setting a verdict aside, we are bound to determine whether or not it was justified upon the record before us. When that discloses no more than a case of...