Kupchunos v. Conn. Co.

• Decision Date: 10 June 1942
• Citation: 120 Conn. 100,26 A.2d 775
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: KUPCHUNOS v. CONNECTICUT CO. et al.

26 A.2d 775

120 Conn. 100

KUPCHUNOS

v. CONNECTICUT CO. et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

June 10, 1942.

Appeal from Superior Court, Hartford County; Edwin C. Dickenson, Judge.

Action by Anthony Kupchunos, administrator of the estate of Peter Kupchunos, deceased, against the Connecticut Company and another to recover damages for the death of plaintiff's intestate alleged to have been caused by the negligence of defendants. The case was tried to the jury, and from a judgment entered on a verdict for plaintiff, defendants appeal.

No error.

Before MALTBIE, C. J, and AVERY, BROWN, JENNINGS, and ELLS, JJ.

James W. Carpenter, of Hartford, for appellant.

Joseph P. Cooney, of Hartford (Alfred F. Wechsler, of Hartford, on the brief), for appellee.

AVERY, Judge.

On September 19, 1941, Peter Kupchunos, the plaintiff's intestate, at about 12:30 in the morning, on the highway leading from Rockville to Manchester, was struck and killed by the named defendant's bus operated by the defendant driver. This action was brought by his administrator claiming that his death was caused by the negligence of the defendant driver. The case was tried to the jury and a verdict rendered for the plaintiff from which the defendants have appealed. The only ground of error claimed on the appeal is the refusal of the trial court to grant the defendants' motion to set aside the verdict of the jury, the defendants' claim being that upon the whole record no negligence of the defendant driver was shown and the plaintiff's intestate was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law.

Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, the jury might reasonably have found these facts: The highway from Rockville to Manchester, at the place of the collision, runs in a general direction of east and west and consists of two lanes of concrete each ten feet wide with black hard surface shoulders four to eight feet wide and an eight-foot embankment to the north. The plaintiff's intestate was proceeding westerly towards Manchester, walking near the right hand edge of the northerly lane of concrete. The defendants' bus was proceeding in the same direction. There is an underpass approximately four hundred feet east, and to the west of the underpass there is a very sharp right hand curve. The place of the accident was approximately at the westerly end of this curve. At a point about eighty or one hundred feet west of the underpass, the defendant driver met a car proceeding in the opposite direction, and as he came towards that car he put his lights on the low beam, did not reduce his speed and did not see the plaintiff's intestate until about ten or fifteen feet away from him. The speed of the bus was then thirty-five miles an hour. On seeing the plaintiff's intestate, the defendant driver pulled to the left but at no time did the bus cross the...