Olderman v. Bridgeport-City Trust Co.
Decision Date | 07 February 1939 |
Citation | 125 Conn. 177,4 A.2d 646 |
Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
Parties | OLDERMAN v. BRIDGEPORT-CITY TRUST CO. et al. |
Appeal from Superior Court, Fairfield County; Kenneth Wynne, Judge.
Action by Helen Olderman against the Bridgeport-City Trust Company and others, for personal injuries, alleged to have been caused by the negligence of the defendants, brought to the superior court and tried to the jury. Verdict and judgment for the defendants, and plaintiff appeals.
Error and new trial ordered.
David R. Lessler, of Bridgeport, for appellant.
J Kenneth Bradley, Raymond E. Baldwin, Samuel G. Payne, and Frank M. Canfield, all of Bridgeport, for appellees.
Argued before MALTBIE, C.J., and HINMAN, AVERY, BROWN, and JENNINGS JJ.
The plaintiff was injured in falling over a hose reel while walking from a garage owned by the defendants to her home next door. Errors are assigned in the finding and in the charge.
The finding, with such corrections as can be made therein discloses that the plaintiff offered evidence and claimed to have proved the following facts: The defendants own a frame house on Iraniston Avenue in Bridgeport and Alice Rector, one of them, occupies it. In November, 1935, they leased one stall in a two car garage located southwesterly of their house to Meyer Olderman, husband of the plaintiff, and he paid rent therefor up to the time when the plaintiff was injured. The Oldermans with their child lived in the next house to the north. During the entire term of the rental of the garage, it was the custom of the plaintiff and her husband to use, as a means of getting from the garage to their house, a pathway which led from the garage to and along a concrete walk at the rear and northerly side of the defendants' building until they came opposite their side door. They then crossed a narrow grass plot to their own house The two houses were quite close together. The defendants knew of this custom and made no objection. The ground extending for about twenty-six feet east of the garage is covered with crushed stone and an eight foot driveway bounded by two eighteen inch concrete strips extends from this area to the street. Except for the areas described the yard was given over to lawn.
On the day of the accident, September 9, 1936, the defendant Alice Rector had placed a hose reel on the walk at the rear of her premises so that it covered the entire walk. The presence of the hose reel upon the walk was an obstruction inherently dangerous to persons using the walk. The evening of September 9th was dark and the ground in the rear of the defendants' house was not illuminated. At about 11 p. m. on that evening the plaintiff and her husband came home and drove their car into the garage. While the husband was closing the garage doors the plaintiff started for her home, taking the customary route previously described. When she started along the walk, she fell over the hose reel and was injured. No steps were taken by Mrs. Rector to warn the plaintiff of the presence of the hose reel although she had ample opportunity to do so. There was also ample time for her to have removed the reel to a place where it would not cause danger.
The claims of proof of the defendants differed from those of the plaintiff only in that the driveway was described as ‘ a convenient and proper entrance for persons passing on foot from the street to the garage and the plaintiff and her husband had no express or implied permission to use any other way * * *.’ The defendants also claimed that the hose reel was given to the plaintiff's son to play with and was last seen in his possession.
The principal assignments of error pressed by the plaintiff are that the charge omitted all reference to nuisance and that it was defective with reference to the duty owed to a licensee and an invitee. In his memorandum of decision on the motion to set aside the verdict, the trial judge recognized the first criticism but stated that nuisance was not in the case. He also omitted any reference to this claim in the finding. On this record, therefore, the finding is barren of any claim on the part of the plaintiff that the defendants were guilty of maintaining a nuisance. Fitzgerald v. Savin, 119 Conn. 63 66, 174 A. 177, 179. The addition to the finding of...
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