Michaud v. Gagne

• Decision Date: 20 July 1967
• Citation: 232 A.2d 326,155 Conn. 406
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Onesime MICHAUD v. Lucien R. GAGNE.

Page 326

232 A.2d 326

155 Conn. 406

Onesime MICHAUD v. Lucien R. GAGNE.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

July 20, 1967.

Peter C. Dorsey, New Haven, with whom, on the brief, was John C. Glanagan, New Haven, for appellant (defendant).

Joseph Protter, Waterbury, for appellee (plaintiff).

Before KING, C.J., and ALCORN, HOUSE, COTTER and THIM, JJ.

COTTER, Associate Justice.

This is an appeal by the defendant from a judgment rendered on a verdict against him in an automobile negligence case.

Certain facts were undisputed. The plaintiff, on June 6, 1964, was operating his motor vehicle in an easterly direction on route 6 in Farmington. The defendant was proceeding in a westerly direction on route 6, intending to make a left turn into Hyde Road, which runs in a southerly direction and intersects route 6 at an angle. The eastbound and westbound lanes of route 6 are separated by double yellow lines which do not run through the intersection but extend to the boundary lines of the area of the intersection both to the east and the west. There is a slight upgrade from east to west on route 6 through the intersection with a curve to the north. Debris from the impact of the collision was found eleven feet east of a telephone pole at the southeast corner of the intersection, at a point south of the double yellow line and about halfway between the double yellow line and the south curb of route 6. The collision occurred in the eastbound land.

The plaintiff testified that he was twenty to thirty feet into the intersection when he suddenly saw the defendant's vehicle traveling west (the defendant claims the plaintiff was fifty feet away at this time) and that it crossed the double yellow line below the southeast corner of the intersection of route 6 and Hyde Road and proceeded westerly in the eastbound lane. The plaintiff claims that he immediately applied his brakes but that the defendant kept on moving toward the plaintiff's car and did not attempt to stop; while the defendant claims he stopped at the intersection to let traffic pass, started to turn and while he was turning saw the plaintiff's car, at which time he braked his own car and tried to veer to the right. The plaintiff's car was damaged at the front, with greater damage to the left front, and the defendant's automobile was damaged in the center front end.

The defendant assigns error in the claimed failure of the court to adopt his requests to charge on the issues of (1) the plaintiff's proper control over his vehicle and (2) the unfavorable inferences to be drawn bearing upon the evidence as to the plaintiff's speed as a 'cause' of the accident; in leaving to the jury the question whether the defendant operated his automobile at an unreasonable rate of speed, claiming there was no evidence on which to predicate that portion of the charge; and in including in its charge under what the defendant calls 'the turn statute' the requirements that no person shall turn a vehicle (1) unless such movement can be made with reasonable safety and (2) unless he gives an appropriate signal when making a turn, which requirements the defendant claims were not within the allegations of the complaint.

A determination of this last issue in the case cannot be solely confined, for several reasons, to an interpretation of only one statute. In the first place, the defendant, evidently claiming that he had the right of way at the intersection, filed requests to charge with the court, including a request that the court charge the jury under General Statutes § 14-246 regarding the right of way at an intersection turn. This statute, in effect at the time of the accident, but which has since been amended (Public Acts, Spec. Sess., Feb. 1965, No. 448 § 26), gave drivers who had yielded and signaled the right of way for a left turn. Second since the defendant was approaching the intersection intending to make a left turn into Hyde Road, §§ 14-241(b), 14-242(a), 14-242(b), 14-244 and 14-246 of the General Statutes govern the rights and obligations of the operators. Kronish v. Provasoli, 149 Conn. 368, 371, 179 A.2d 823. The allegations of negligence in the complaint, although not citing the specific statutes, made their application a part of the cause of action. The two references made by the court in the charge, concerned with giving an appropriate signal and forbidding the turn unless that movement can be made with reasonable safety, were issues in the case and essential elements of the applicable statutory law under the circumstances. The court was fully justified in charging as it did upon this theory of the case. Domenick v. Wilbert Burial Vault Co., 149 Conn. 381, 386, 180 A.2d 290.

In the course of the charge to the jury, the court referred them to a consideration of inferences in weighing the evidence and explained to them that they should draw proper inferences based on proven facts which they found to be reasonable and logical. A very short request to charge, proposed by the defendant, inferring negligence from evidence of the plaintiff's speed omitted pertinent facts for such an inference to apply. It failed to contain 'such a complete statement of the essential facts as would have justified the court in charging in the form requested.' Dwyer v. Connecticut Co., 103 Conn. 678, 680, 131 A. 838. A statement contained therein, that, if the jury found that the plaintiff's speed was unreasonable and a cause of the accident, their verdict should be for the defendant, was an incorrect statement of the rule of law. Crowder v. Zion Baptist Church, Inc., 143 Conn. 90, 100, 119 A.2d 736; Maltbie, Conn.App.Proc. § 111, p. 135. The plaintiff's negligence must...