Messier v. Zanglis

• Decision Date: 02 July 1957
• Citation: 133 A.2d 619,144 Conn. 449
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Louis MESSIER, Administrator (Estate of Jean L. Messier) v. Gregory ZANGLIS et al. Thomas M. KELLEY, Administrator (Estate of Richard A. Kelley) v. Gregory ZANGLIS et al. Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut

Page 619

133 A.2d 619

144 Conn. 449

Louis MESSIER, Administrator (Estate of Jean L. Messier) v. Gregory ZANGLIS et al.

Thomas M. KELLEY, Administrator (Estate of Richard A. Kelley) v. Gregory ZANGLIS et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

July 2, 1957.

J. Ronald Regnier, Hartford, with whom were William R. Moller, Hartford, and, on the brief, George E. Merwin, Hartford, for the appellants (plaintiffs).

John E. Shields, Norwich, with whom, on the brief, were Harry E. Back, Jr., Danielson, and Bradley Bates, Hartford, for the appellees (defendants).

O'SULLIVAN, C. J., and BALDWIN, WYNNE, DALY and KING, JJ.

BALDWIN, Associate Justice.

The plaintiffs, administrators, respectively, of the estates of Jean L. Messier and Richard A. Kelley, have appealed from the judgments rendered upon the denial of their motions to set aside the verdicts in favor of the defendants. The plaintiffs assign error in the denial of their motions and in the charge to the jury.

The claims of proof made by the plaintiffs may be stated in summary as follows: Their decedents, Jean Messier, aged nineteen, and Richard Kelley, aged seventeen, were walking northerly along the easterly side of Maple Street, also known as Lake Road, a public highway in Killingly, about 11:15 o'clock in the evening of September 25, 1954. At the place where the decedents were walking, Maple Street is a black-top macadam road, seventeen and one-half feet wide, without shoulders, and substantially level. The highway was posted to indicate a maximum speed not in excess of thirty miles per hour. Rain had been falling, but there was no fog or heavy rain to impair the vision of the operator of a motor vehicle driving with reasonable care. The defendant Gregory Zanglis, aged twenty-four, was driving a 1938 Buick owned by the defendant John Kertennis along Maple Street in a northerly direction toward the Wildwood Restaurant at Alexander's Lake, about one-half a mile north of the place where the decedents were walking. Zanglis ran down the decedents, dragging or throwing the body of Messier 62 feet and the body of Kelley 139 feet, and fatally injuring both. When Zanglis first obtained a motor vehicle operator's license in 1950, the license was issued under a restriction requiring him to wear glasses, but he was not wearing glasses when the accident occurred. The injuries and deaths of the decedents were caused by Zanglis' negligence.

The defendants' claims of proof may be stated briefly as follows: Zanglis was operating Kertennis' car, as the agent of the latter, northerly on Maple Street. At the scene of the accident trees line the westerly side of the highway, and a dwelling house located on a plot of land level with the roadway stands on the easterly side. There were no street lights, and the dwelling house was in darkness. It had been raining hard and the roadway was wet. A light drizzle was still falling, and the fog and mist in the darkness made visibility poor. The decedents had attended a party and had consumed enough alcoholic beverage to be intoxicated. They were wearing dark clothing. When struck by the car, they were walking northerly on the easterly side of the road and indulging in what is commonly called horseplay. Their backs were turned toward the traffic coming from the south. As the defendants' car approached the decedents, an automobile driven by David Turner was coming from the opposite direction. Turner saw the decedents when he was thirty feet north of them. At this time the defendants' car was forty to forty-five feet south of the decedents. Zanglis, blinded by the lights of the approaching car and the poor visibility, did not see either of the decedents until after his car struck them. He was not required to wear glasses by any restriction in his motor vehicle operator's license. The decedents were guilty of contributory negligence. As pedestrians they were using the highway negligently and in disregard of their own safety in violation of General Statutes, § 8513. The defendants were not negligent.

We shall consider first the errors claimed in the charge. The plaintiffs assert that the court erred in instructing the jury that the defendant Zanglis had a right to assume that other users of the highway would obey the law. The plaintiffs argue that the defect in that charge was the court's failure to apply the second essential element of the rule, to wit, that Zanglis could rely on such an assumption only until he knew, or in the exercise of reasonable care should have known, that it had become unwarranted. This is the law. Gross v. Boston, W. & N. Y. St. Ry. Co., 117 Conn. 589, 596, 169 A. 613; Mastorgi v. Valley View Farms, Inc., 138 Conn. 313, 316, 83 A.2d 919. The charge on this feature of the case, when read in its entirety, is not open to the plaintiffs' criticism. Preceding the passage which the plaintiffs complain of, the court had twice instructed the jury that the user of a highway may assume that others using it will exercise reasonable care until the contrary appears or would have appeared to a reasonably prudent person...