Murteza v. State

• Decision Date: 29 April 1986
• Docket Number: No. 3887,3887
• Citation: 508 A.2d 449,7 Conn.App. 196
• Court: Connecticut Court of Appeals
• Parties: Raymond MURTEZA v. STATE of Connecticut.

Page 449

508 A.2d 449

7 Conn.App. 196

Raymond MURTEZA v. STATE of Connecticut.

No. 3887.

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued Feb. 6, 1986.

Decided April 29, 1986.

Wesley W. Horton, Hartford, with whom were Arnold Rutkin, Kathleen A. Hogan, Westport, and, on brief, Kimberly A. Knox and David Bloomberg, Law Student Interns, for appellant (plaintiff).

Jeremiah M. Keefe, with whom was James E. Kernan, Waterbury, for appellee (defendant).

Before DUPONT, C.J., and HULL and DALY, JJ.

HULL, Judge.

This case raises the question of whether the trial court erred in refusing to set aside a general verdict for the defendant and to render judgment for the plaintiff in a statutory negligence action he brought against the state pursuant to General Statutes § 52-556. ¹ The plaintiff claims that because the jury answered two interrogatories in a manner that conclusively established that the defendant was at fault, the trial court could only render judgment for him. We disagree. The jury, as the ultimate judge of the credibility of witnesses and the weight to be accorded their testimony, was entitled to disbelieve the plaintiff's damage claims entirely. Thus, despite the plaintiff's assertion that he suffered tremendous injuries and damages, we find no error.

The case was brought to recover damages the plaintiff claimed to have sustained as a result of an automobile accident which occurred in Waterbury on February 7, 1978. The plaintiff's amended complaint alleged that Michael Sloan, an employee of the defendant, the state of Connecticut, drove a Connecticut National Guard truck through a red light at an intersection and struck a Waterbury police car in which the plaintiff, a Waterbury police officer, was a passenger.

After a nine week trial, the jury was asked, in addition to returning a general verdict, to answer five special interrogatories, only two of which are pertinent to our inquiry. Those two interrogatories are as follows: (1) "Do you find, based on the evidence presented to you that it is more probable than not that Michael Sloan ran a red light when he drove his vehicle into the intersection of West Main Street and southbound Watertown Avenue, where [the] incident in question occurred?"; and (2) "Do you find, based on the evidence presented to you that Michael Sloan was negligent in one or more respects as set forth in the Plaintiff's complaint?" The jury answered both questions affirmatively, but nevertheless rendered a general verdict in favor of the defendant.

Counsel for the plaintiff immediately asked the court to instruct the jury to render a verdict for the plaintiff in accordance with their findings regarding fault. The court refused to do so on the ground that the jury might not have found that the plaintiff had sustained his proof as to damages. The plaintiff then filed a motion to set aside the general verdict and judgment, and for judgment on the responses to the interrogatories and for a new trial as to damages. The trial court denied these motions stating that "[t]he Court is of the opinion that the jury could have discredited testimony as to damages and that they could have found that the damages, perhaps, were not proven by a fair preponderance of the evidence as is necessary." The plaintiff now appeals claiming as his sole issue that, notwithstanding the general verdict for the defendant, he was entitled to judgment as a matter of law because of the jury's answer to the two interrogatories and, therefore, the trial court erred in refusing to set aside the verdict.

Relevant testimony before the jury follows. On February 7, 1978, there was a snow storm in Connecticut so severe that the governor called out the National Guard. Only emergency vehicles were allowed on the roads of the state. At approximately 11:30 p.m., on that evening, the plaintiff was a passenger in the back seat of a police cruiser being driven by Officer Anthony Palladino. The cruiser was driving in a southerly direction on Watertown Avenue. At the same time, Michael Sloan was driving a National Guard truck westerly on West Main Street. His mission was to deliver some police officers to their homes. Sloan failed to stop at the red light at the intersection of West Main Street and Watertown Avenue. The cruiser driven by Palladino struck the truck at a point in the middle of the southbound Watertown Avenue lanes of travel, badly damaging the front of the cruiser and smashing its door in. Palladino's speed was between fifteen and twenty miles an hour, while Sloan was travelling at about twenty-five to thirty-five miles per hour. Palladino never saw the truck before the collision. The roads in the area were icy and only partly plowed. They were lined with high snow banks.

The plaintiff was taken to Waterbury hospital where he remained for fifteen days. He was treated for a complaint concerning his left eye which was described in the hospital records as "some tearing of the eyes" and "some white mucus from the left eye." The plaintiff was also treated for acute back and neck pain, by Dr. J. Michael Hogan, an orthopedic surgeon, who had treated the plaintiff for back problems since 1972.

The plaintiff claimed the following principal consequences of the accident: (1) sexual impotency; (2) lost wages; (3) permanent disability from work; (4) general limitation of social, recreational and normal life activities; (5) drug addiction; and (6) termination of his marriage. The plaintiff also claimed $84,996.55 of medical special damages. At trial, the plaintiff introduced extensive medical testimony in an attempt to substantiate these claims. Hogan testified that a diagnostic test known as a myelogram, taken right after the accident, showed significant signs of abnormality of the spine, while an identical test performed six months before the accident showed none. His discharge diagnosis was acute cervical strain and abrasion of the eye. While Hogan performed four surgical operations on the plaintiff's cervical spine after the accident, he stated that the accident was not the only cause of the treatment rendered after the accident. Dr. Richard Matza, an orthopedic surgeon who treated the plaintiff after Hogan moved to Maine, testified that all of the six operations the plaintiff had on his cervical and lumbro-sacral spine resulted from injuries incurred in the accident and that the plaintiff was permanently disabled therefrom.

Several other doctors testified that the plaintiff was able to work and that his injuries were not caused by the accident. Dr. James Finn, a neurosurgeon, testified that, in September 1978, the plaintiff was disabled from all employment and would probably continue to be for another three to six months. He stated, however, that the plaintiff's back problem was primarily a result of injuries which occurred prior to 1978. Dr. Macellis Glass, an orthopedic surgeon, testified that X-rays taken after the accident showed no evidence of a herniated disc in the cervical area. He further testified that a myelogram was performed on June 7, 1977, which identified cervical scar tissue which had formed from a previous operation. A myelogram performed in March 1978, after the accident, showed no change from the earlier myelogram, and no cervical injury was sustained in the accident.

I

DID THE TRIAL COURT ERR IN REFUSING TO SET ASIDE THE VERDICT

AND IN REFUSING TO RENDER JUDGMENT FOR THE PLAINTIFF

The role of an appellate court where an appellant seeks judgment contrary to a general verdict, because of the jury's allegedly inconsistent answers to interrogatories, was first analyzed in Belchak v. New York, N.H. & H.R. Co., 119 Conn. 630, 179 A. 95 (1935). In Belchak, the plaintiff recovered damages for injuries suffered when an automobile which his intestate was driving was struck by a freight car as the automobile crossed the defendant's tracks. The jury rendered a general verdict for the plaintiff but answered in the affirmative the question whether, at the time of the accident, an employee of the defendant had been on the crossing swinging a white lantern. The defendant moved to have the general verdict set aside and to have judgment rendered in its favor, claiming that the answer to the interrogatory showed indisputably that the driver had been contributorily negligent so as to bar the plaintiff's recovery. The trial court rendered judgment in the defendant's favor, and on appeal the Supreme Court found error.

In finding error in Belchak, the Supreme Court clarified the appropriate standard to use when answers to interrogatories allegedly conflict with a general verdict: "To justify the entry of a judgment contrary to a general verdict upon the basis of answers to interrogatories, those answers must be such in themselves as conclusively to show that as a matter of law judgment could only be rendered for the party against whom the general verdict was found; they must negative every reasonable hypothesis as to the situation provable under the issues made by the pleadings; and in determining that, the court may consider only the issues framed by the pleadings, the general verdict and the interrogatories, with the answers made to them, without resort to the evidence offered at the trial." (Emphasis added.) Id., 634. The court determined that that standard had not been satisfied because "an entirely reasonable hypothesis might be formulated within the scope of the pleadings and not inconsistent with the answer to the interrogatory, which would remove the question of negligent conduct on the part of the operator of the car from the field of law to that of fact and, despite that answer, justify the general verdict for the plaintiff." Id., 635, 179 A. 95. This was so because the interrogatories had not addressed several issues: "How wide was the street, how many tracks ran across it and how far was the distance over them? Where did the employee stand, in the center of the road or at one side, between the automobile...