Leete v. Griswold Post No. 79, American Legion

• Decision Date: 23 February 1932
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: LEETE v. GRISWOLD POST NO. 79, AMERICAN LEGION, et al.

158 A. 919

114 Conn. 400

LEETE v. GRISWOLD POST NO. 79, AMERICAN LEGION, et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

February 23, 1932

Appeal from Superior Court, New Haven County; Ernest A. Inglis Judge.

Action by Raymond I. Leete against Griswold Post No. 79, American Legion, and another to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by the defendants' negligence, brought to the superior court and tried to the court. Judgment for the plaintiff against the named defendant and the defendant the Connecticut Tire Service, Incorporated and appeal by both defendants.

No error.

Daniel D. Morgan, Philip Pond, and Joseph B. Morse, all of New Haven, for appellant Griswold Post No. 79, American Legion.

Samuel E. Hoyt, Arthur F. Brown, and Irving Sweedler, all of New Haven, for appellant Connecticut Tire Service, Inc.

Herbert L. Emanuelson and Armen K. Krikorian, both of New Haven, for appellee.

HINMAN, J.

On the morning of January 14, 1930, the plaintiff was seriously injured in an automobile accident in Madison, and was removed to the Guilford Sanatorium, where he received emergency treatment; but as there were no facilities for the taking of X-rays, he was later placed in an ambulance of the defendant Griswold Post for the purpose of transporting him to a hospital in New Haven. The driver was told to convey the plaintiff to the hospital as quickly as possible but to use care in driving over rough roads. The ambulance was owned and maintained by the Post for the purpose of transporting such members of the public in Guilford. Madison, and Clinton as might need the services of an ambulance. No charge was made to the plaintiff, and there was no expectation that any charge would be made, for his transportation. There was, however, a reasonable prospect that, out of gratitude for such transportation, the plaintiff would later make a donation to the Post for the benefit of the fund devoted to the maintenance of the ambulance.

The ambulance was equipped with a siren which was operated electrically, and while proceeding westerly on Chapel street in New Haven the driver sounded it continuously and loudly. As the ambulance approached the intersection of Orchard and Chapel streets the traffic signal light located at the intersection turned first yellow and then red against it, turning yellow when the ambulance was at such a distance from the intersection that it could have been brought to a stop with safety before entering, and red before it entered the intersection. However, it proceeded into the intersection without stopping and at a speed of about forty miles per hour.

At approximately the same time that the ambulance was approaching the intersection an oil truck owned by the defendant Connecticut Tire Service was proceeding southerly on Orchard street. At a point about fifty feet north of the intersection the driver, noticing that the signal light was yellow, started to slacken speed; but when the light turned green toward him, he proceeded into the intersection at a speed of about twenty miles per hour. The driver failed to notice the sound of the ambulance siren.

At the respective rates of speed at which the vehicles were going each came within the line of vision of the driver of the other when the oil truck was at least twenty-five feet from the northerly line of the intersection and the ambulance at least fifty feet from the easterly line of the intersection. Neither driver, however, looked in the direction from which the other vehicle was approaching, and neither saw the other vehicle until just the instant before the cars came into collision at about the center of the intersection. The force of the collision inflicted additional injury upon the plaintiff and he suffered a severe shock.

From the facts found, including the foregoing, the trial court reached the conclusion that the collision was caused by the concurrent negligence of the two drivers; that of the ambulance driver consisting in that he drove into the intersection at a reckless rate of speed and when the traffic light was against him, and in that he failed to look to his right for traffic coming from that direction: and that of the driver of the truck in that he failed to hear the sound of the siren, proceeded into the intersection without looking to his left, and failed to observe the ambulance and that it was not going to stop.

It was also concluded that the ambulance did not have the right of way at the intersection because section 394 of the General Statutes supersedes section 1595; the defendant Griswold Post was a public carrier as that phrase is used in section 1628 of the General Statutes; that the transportation of the plaintiff was for the mutual benefit of both the plaintiff and the Post; and that the plaintiff was not a guest in the ambulance. The assignments of error relate to these conclusions.

Consideration of the conclusion that the ambulance did not have the right of way involves several statutory provisions bearing upon the respective rights of the vehicles of the two defendants with reference to travel through the intersection. If the situation was governed by the familiar general regulation prescribed by the " rules of the road" statute (section 1639), the truck would have the right of way as against the ambulance, as the former was approaching the latter from the right and arriving at the intersection at approximately the same time. Here, however, one of two other sections of the statutes concededly has controlling application and effect. The presence of a traffic signal light at the intersection made operative, as to traffic generally, a provision of the Uniform Traffic Control Act (Public Acts 1929, chap. 209. now chapter 25 of the General Statutes [sections 393-403]) contained in section 394 (b) of the General Statutes, which appears in a footnote.^[1] Under this rule, also, upon the facts found, the truck had the right of way as against the ambulance. There is, however, another relevant statute which originated as chapter 79 of the Public Acts of 1925, entitled " An act concerning the right of way of ambulances and Fire Apparatus" (section 1595), the presently material provisions of which are quoted in a footnote.^[2] This statute, standing by itself, expressly grants the right of way to the ambulance upon the state of facts disclosed, by the record. The trial court rules that section 394, having been passed in 1929, superseded and repealed by implication section 1595, which was adopted four years earlier. This conception of the statutory situation apparently was arrived at by application of the general rule that if a legislative act is irreconcilably repugnant to or in conflict with a prior act the later operates as a repeal of the earlier to the extent of the inconsistency. 25 R.C.L. p. 914; 36 Cyc. p. 1073. However, repeals by implication are not favored and occur only when two statutes are so repugnant to one another as to clearly indicate that the later act was intended, wholly or in part, as a substitute for the former. If both can be reconciled, they must stand together and be accorded concurrent effect and operation. Root v. Connecticut Co., 94 Conn. 227, 108 A. 506; Fair Haven & Westville R. Co. v. New Haven, 75 Conn. 442, 446, 53 A. 960; Kallahan v. Osborne, 37 Conn. 488; 1 Swift's Digest, 12; 36 Cyc. p. 1146. " If courts can, by any fair, strict, or liberal construction, find for the two provisions a reasonable field of operation, without destroying their evident intent and meaning preserving the force of both, and construing them together in harmony with the whole course of legislation upon the subject, it is their duty to do so." Curry v. Lehman, 53 Fla. 847, 855, 47 So. 18, 21: Crawford v. Roloson, 262 Mass. 527, 160 N.E. 303; Masterson v. Whipple, 27 R.I. 192, 61 A. 446. Situations affording occasion for application of these principles usually concern successive acts of the Legislature. The presumption against repeal by implication and the force of the reconciliation rule are augmented when, as here, both the provisions have been retained in a general revision of the statutes, and by the re-enactment of such revision established as parts of the entire statute law of the State. State v. McGuire, 84 Conn. 470, 478, 80 A. 761, 38 L.R.A. (N. S.) 1045; Eld v. Gorham, 20 Conn. 8, 15.

In our judgment the provisions of section 394 (b) and section 1595 may and should be so construed that both shall be operative in their respective fields-the former as a part of the traffic control act of general...