Miranti v. Brookside Shopping Center, Inc.

Decision Date23 December 1969
Citation159 Conn. 24,266 A.2d 370
PartiesFrancis MIRANTI, Jr. v. BROOKSIDE SHOPPING CENTER, INC., et al.
CourtConnecticut Supreme Court

Alfred J. Jennings, Jr., Bridgeport, with whom, on the brief, were William J. Kupinse, Jr., and Lawrence W. Kanaga, Bridgeport, for appellant (plaintiff).

Edward J. Holahan, Jr., and Richard P. Gilardi, Bridgeport, for appellees (defendants).

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

ALCORN, Associate Justice.

The plaintiff, a fifteen-year-old boy, who brought this action by his father, has appealed from the rendition of a summary judgment in favor of both defendants.

The complaint alleged that the plaintiff was seriously injured when he fell on a paved portion of property which was owned by the defendant the Brookside Shopping Center, Inc., and leased by the defendant the Western Auto Supply Company. Numerous acts of 'carelessness, recklessness and negligence' were alleged relating, in one way or another, to the principal claim that each defendant was responsible for a dangerous accumulation of trash and debris in the area which caused the plaintiff's injury.

The defendant the Brookside Shopping Center, Inc., denied an allegation that it owned and controlled the area but admitted the plaintiff's allegation that the defendant the Western Auto Supply Company leased and controlled it. The defendant the Western Auto Supply Company denied that it leased and controlled the area but admitted the plaintiff's allegation that the Brookside Shopping Center, Inc., owned and controlled it. Both defendants denied the alleged circumstances of the plaintiff's fall and any fault on the part of either of them and pleaded no information as to the plaintiff's claimed injuries and resulting expenditures. Both defendants pleaded the plaintiff's contributory negligence, which the plaintiff, in turn, denied.

On motions for summary judgment made by each defendant, the court was presented with a deposition and an affidavit of the plaintiff from which it appeared that, with another boy, he bowled and visited a store in the Brookside Shopping Center after which they left and went to another location nearby where they were chased by a dog. They ran down a path toward the paved area at the Brookside Shopping Center, and the dog knocked the plaintiff down.

The complaint alleged that the plaintiff was caused to fall over an accumulation of trash and debris near the edge of the paved area in the rear of the Western Auto Supply Company store and on to an automobile storage battery, sustaining, among other injuries, a ruptured spleen. The court's memorandum of decision, to which we turn, there being no finding, recites: 'No other affidavit or evidence called to the attention of the court tends to show that the debris was the cause of the fall. Under the circumstances, there is no issue of fact in dispute relating to the debris being the cause of the fall.' On this basis summary judgment was rendered.

In passing on the motions for summary judgment, the court was faced with the question whether a genuine issue as to any material fact existed. Practice Book § 303; Dorazio v. M. B. Foster Electric Co., 157 Conn. 226, 228, 253 A.2d 22; Kasowitz v. Mutual Construction Co., 154 Conn. 607, 610, 228 A.2d 149; Associates Discount Corporation v. Smith's Windham Lincoln-Mercury Sales, Inc., 153 Conn. 176, 180, 214 A.2d 909; Rathkopf v. Pearson, 148 Conn. 260, 264, 170 A.2d 135.

On the pleadings there was a disputed issue as to whether an accumulation of trash and debris existed which was of such a nature as to impose liability for injury in one or more of the ways claimed by the plaintiff and, if it did exist, whether one or both of the defendants were in control of the area so as to be chargeable with having created the condition or allowed it to exist. Beyond this there was the disputed issue as to the plaintiff's contributory negligence. We are not concerned in this instance with the further disputed issue as to the extent of the plaintiff's damages. The court obviously concluded that, regardless of whether the circumstances which might be developed in a trial would establish negligence on the part of either or both of the defendants, the proximate cause of the plaintiff's fall and resulting injury was solely the action of the dog in knocking the plaintiff down rather than the accumulation of trash and debris.

It is elementary that, in a negligence case, a causal relation between a defendant's wrongful conduct and a plaintiff's injury must be established in order for the plaintiff to recover damages. Lombardi v. J. A. Bergren Dairy Farms, Inc., 153 Conn. 19, 22, 213 A.2d 449. The issue of proximate cause presents a question of fact for the trier unless no causal relation between the negligence of a defendant and a plaintiff's injuries can reasonably be found. McDowell v. Federal Tea Co.,128 Conn. 437, 440, 23 A.2d 512; DeMunda v. Loomis, 127 Conn. 313, 315, 16 A.2d 578. The subject has been exhaustively analyzed, as applied to the contributory negligence of a plaintiff, in Kinderavich v. Palmer, 127 Conn. 85, 15 A.2d 83, and, as applied to a defendant, in Mahoney v. Beatman,110 Conn. 184, 147 A. 762, 66 A.L.R. 1121.

In Lombardi v. Wallad, 98 Conn. 510, p. 519, 120 A. 291, p. 294, this court said: 'If the owner of anything, capable in its nature of doing injury, negligently leaves it unguarded and exposed in a public place, and it be set in motion by a negligent person, the owner will be held responsible for the injuries consequently suffered by a third person not himself careless.' In Sedita v. Steinberg, 105 Conn. 1, p. 6, 134 A. 243, p. 244, 49 A.L.R. 154, we said: ...

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  • Slicer v. Quigley
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Connecticut
    • 15 Abril 1980
    ...the risk created by the actor's conduct. Restatement (Second), 2 Torts, § 442B, quoted with approval in Miranti v. Brookside Shopping Center, Inc., 159 Conn. 24, 28, 266 A.2d 370 (1969). The test to be applied is whether the defendant's conduct was a substantial factor in causing the plaint......
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    ...to whether he could foresee that harm of the general nature of that suffered was likely to result. See Miranti v. Brookside Shopping Center, Inc., 159 Conn. 24, 30, 266 A.2d 370 (1969); Gutierrez v. Thorne, 13 Conn.App. 493, 500-501, 537 A.2d 527 (1988). Given the evidence that the defendan......
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    ...Townsend, 163 Conn. 360, 364, 307 A.3d 174; Albert v. Lee Circle Inc., 162 Conn. 124, 128, 291 A.2d 735; Miranti v. Brookside Shopping Center, Inc., 159 Conn. 24, 28-29, 266 A.3d 370; Figlar v. Gordon, 133 Conn. 577, 582, 53 A.2d 645; Roden v. Connecticut Co., 113 Conn. 408, 413, 155 A. The......
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    ...cause of the injury. Virelli v. Benhattie, Inc., 146 Conn. 203, 209, 148 A.2d 760 (1959); see also Miranti v. Brookside Shopping Center, Inc., 159 Conn. 24, 29, 266 A.2d 370 (1969); Corey v. Phillips, [supra, 126 Conn. at 254-56, 10 A.2d 370]. The doctrine serves as a dividing line between ......
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