Miles v. Sherman
| Decision Date | 16 May 1933 |
| Citation | 116 Conn. 678,166 A. 250 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | MILES v. SHERMAN. |
Appeal from Superior Court, New Haven County; Edwin C. Dickenson Judge.
Action by George Miles against Lawrence Sherman to recover damages for injuries caused by defendant's negligence in the operation of an automobile. From a verdict of the jury for plaintiff, defendant appeals.
Error and new trial ordered.
Samuel Campner, of New Haven, for appellant.
Samuel Reich, of Bridgeport, and Philip Reich, of New York City, for appellee.
Argued before MALTBIE, O. J., and HAINES, HINMAN, BANKS, and AVERY JJ.
On October 18, 1931, at about 12:35 a. m., the plaintiff, while crossing the Boston Post road near the Seven Gables Inn in Milford, was struck and injured by an automobile operated by the defendant. From the verdict of the jury in favor of the plaintiff, the defendant has appealed.
The plaintiff claimed to have proved these facts: At the place of the accident, the Boston Post road carries a heavy traffic and is almost never entirely free from automobiles. It consists of four parallel lanes of concrete each 10 feet in width, and running generally east and west. On each side is a hard oiled shoulder about 4 1/2 feet wide. The plaintiff attempted to cross from the south to the north side; and, when he had reached a point on the south edge of the concrete, he looked in both directions and saw an automobile approaching from his right, approximately 350 feet distant. At the same time he saw the defendant's automobile, which was proceeding easterly, approaching from his left. It was then at a greater distance than the car coming from the right. The night was clear and the road was dry. After the plaintiff had crossed the line between the first and second lanes of concrete, and was nearing the center of the road, he saw defendant's car still quite a distance away. When he had reached the center of the road and had completely crossed the path of defendant's car, he stopped for a moment to permit the automobile which had been approaching from his right to pass; and, while standing in this position, and immediately after the automobile approaching from his right had passed, he was struck by the defendant's car, and injured. Its speed, at the time of the accident, was at least 38 miles an hour.
The defendant, on the other hand, claimed to have proved that the plaintiff, who was wearing a dark suit and a dark grey overcoat, without any warning came out of the darkness and ran into the highway directly in the path of the automobile; that the defendant veered to the left, but the plaintiff continued running into the side of the automobile and was struck by the windshield on the right-hand side; that, because of the darkness and the inconspicuous clothing worn by the plaintiff, it was impossible for the defendant to see him sooner; and that the defendant had no reason to anticipate that anyone would cross the highway at that hour of the night, and did everything possible to avoid the accident.
In the course of its instructions to the jury, the court, after remarking that the defendant, in operating his car, had the right to assume that, if a pedestrian was crossing the street, he would do so with reasonable care in view of traffic conditions, that it was night and one would be less apt to find pedestrians and crossing the street at that time than early in the evening, went on to observe: " On the other hand, a driver is required to have lights that light up the road and make a person clearly visible two hundred feet away; and the presumption is that this defendant had in the absence of any evidence, complled with the law." The court immediately went on to say, by way of comment, that, if the plaintiff's story was assumed to be true to the effect that he stood for a second in the middle of a 40-foot road waiting for a car to pass coming from his right, after he had crossed the two east-bound lanes, then the plaintiff might reasonably have assumed that he could be seen and not struck by the defendant's car; and, on the same assumption, it seemed to the court that, under the conditions, the defendant was negligent in not seeing the plaintiff and in striking him; that a driver of ordinary...
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State v. Chapman
...Hartford v. Champion, 58 Conn. 268, 276, 20 A. 471 (1890); McGarry v. Healey, 78 Conn. 365, 367, 62 A. 671 (1905); Miles v. Sherman, 116 Conn. 678, 682, 166 A. 250 (1933) ... Novak v. Anderson, 178 Conn. 506, 508, 423 A.2d 147 "The principle of not submitting to the jury any issue for which......
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State v. Chapman
...Hartford v. Champion, 58 Conn. 268, 276, 20 A. 471 (1890); McGarry v. Healey, 78 Conn. 365, 367, 62 A. 671 (1905); Miles v. Sherman, 116 Conn. 678, 682, 166 A. 250 (1933) ("instruction which left the door open for the entrance of a finding by the jury of negligence on the defendant's part, ......
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State v. Berger
...Hartford v. Champion, 58 Conn. 268, 276, 20 A. 471 (1890); McGarry v. Healey, 78 Conn. 365, 367, 62 A. 671 (1905); Miles v. Sherman, 116 Conn. 678, 682, 166 A. 250 (1933) . . . Novak v. Anderson, 178 Conn. 506, 508, 423 A.2d 147 "The principle of not submitting to the jury any issue for whi......
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Batick v. Seymour
...The court has a duty to submit to the jury no issue upon which the evidence would not reasonably support a finding. Miles v. Sherman, 116 Conn. 678, 683, 166 A. 250 (1933); Fine v. Connecticut Co., 92 Conn. 626, 630-31, 103 A. 901 (1918). " In a case such as the one before us, where the err......