Malon v. Adley Express Co., Inc.

• Decision Date: 12 June 1934
• Citation: 173 A. 159,118 Conn. 565
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: MALON, v. ADLEY EXPRESS CO., Inc., et al.

173 A. 159

118 Conn. 565

MALON, v. ADLEY EXPRESS CO., Inc., et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

June 12, 1934

Appeal from Court of Common Pleas, District of Waterbury, New Haven County; Edward J. Finn, Judge.

Action by Joseph Malon against the Adley Express Company Incorporated, and others to recover damages for personal injuries caused by the negligence of the defendants. Plaintiff recovered judgment in the court of common pleas on trial to the jury, and defendants appeal.

No error.

Richardson Bronson, of Waterbury (Lawrence L. Lewis and J Warren Upson, both of Waterbury, ont he brief), for appellants.

Francis McDonald and Pasquale DeCicco, both of Waterbury, for appellee.

Argued before MALTBIE, C.J., and HAINES, HINMAN, BANKS, and AVERY, JJ.

MALTBIE, Chief Justice.

The plaintiff brought this action to recover damages for personal injuries suffered when the truck which he was driving came into collision with a truck owned by one of the defendants and driven by the other in the course of his employment. The accident occurred about dawn on a December morning. The two trucks approached each other from opposite directions upon a straight highway thirty-six feet wide. The jury might reasonably have found these facts: The plaintiff was traveling about fifteen miles an hour when he saw the defendants' truck some three hundred feet away. When that truck was fifty or one hundred feet away the defendant driver applied his foot brakes. The brake on the left front wheel " grabbed,‘ causing the truck to swing sharply to the left. Meanwhile the plaintiff had turned his truck to the right until it was partly against and partly over the curb of the street. When the collision occurred the defendants' truck was still going between thirty and thirty-five miles an hour. The defendant driver had started at New Haven for New York and had proceeded some forty miles at the time of the collision. In going this distance he had occasionally put on the foot brake and noticed its tendency to grab. He was driving a five-ton truck and had a load of four and one-half to five tons on it. The jury might reasonably have concluded, other considerations aside, that it was negligent for the defendant driving to operate so heavy a truck at the speed at which he was proceeding, knowing that the brakes were not in proper working order. There was no error in the conclusion of the trial court in refusing to set aside the verdict on the ground that no negligence on the part of the defendant driver had been proven.

The plaintiff within a few weeks after the accident returned to work and up to the time of trial had been employed most of the time at wages as high as or higher than he had received before it occurred. The special damages for necessary expenses proved did not exceed $200. If these were the salient facts in the case, the defendants' contention that a...