Pareles v. McCarthy
| Decision Date | 07 February 1962 |
| Citation | 178 A.2d 155,149 Conn. 238 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | Jonathan PARELES v. Rose T. McCARTHY et al. Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut |
Bernard Green, Bridgeport, with whom, on the brief, was John Arcudi, Bridgeport, for appellant (plaintiff).
Francis A. Smith, Jr., Bridgeport, with whom was William B. Rush, Bridgeport, for appellees (defendants).
Before KING, MURPHY, SHEA and ALCORN, JJ., and MacDONALD, Superior Court Judge.
The plaintiff, a minor, sustained personal injuries alleged to have been caused by the negligence of the defendants. The jury returned a verdict for the defendants and the plaintiff has appealed from the judgment rendered thereon, claiming that the court erred in its charge to the jury.
The plaintiff offered evidence to prove, and claimed to have proved, the following facts: In July, 1956, the plaintiff, then a boy two and one-half years of age, was playing with a paddle ball in the driveway of his parents' home on the northerly side of Lincoln Avenue in Bridgeport. The ball was attached to the paddle by a long elastic band. The driveway was located at the easterly end of the premises. There was a grass strip between the curb and the outer edge of the sidewalk. A fire hydrant was located in this strip about five feet to the east of the easterly edge of the driveway. A car, facing west, was parked on the northerly side of the street with its front end about twelve feet east of the fire hydrant. The ball broke away from the plaintiff's paddle and rolled into the street. The plaintiff started into the street to retrieve the ball and came into contact with an automobile which was owned by the named defendant and was being driven westerly by the defendant Alice M. Ford. She did not see the plaintiff before the impact. She did not change the speed or direction of the car, and she did not apply the brakes until after the impact. No horn was sounded. The plaintiff sustained serious injuries.
The defendants offered evidence to prove, and claimed to have proved, that the operator was driving the car at a speed of fifteen miles per hour, that the plaintiff ran into the street after the ball as the car was passing, and that he struck the automobile at the right side of it, in front of the hinge of the front door. There was a hedge along the north edge of the sidewalk on the property east of the driveway. The car which was parked near the fire hydrant extended about six feet into the street from the north curb. Immediately after the defendant operator heard a thump on the right side of the car she was driving, she stopped the car. It came to rest with its front end about five feet west of the driveway. It was facing west and was approximately seven feet from the north curb. There were no brake marks on the pavement. The plaintiff was lying in the street approximately six feet south of the northerly curb line and about eight feet west of the left front fender of the car which was parked near the hydrant. There were no children playing on the street at the time. A passenger in the defendants' car saw no children in the road as the vehicle proceeded, and she did not know why the operator had stopped the car.
In their answer, the defendants admitted ownership and operation of the automobile but denied that the accident was caused as a result of the negligence of the operator. The pleadings did not raise any issue of due care by the plaintiff. He has attacked the court's charge to the jury on two different ground. First, he claims that the court erred in discussing the standard of care to be expected of a child. In this connection the court told the jury: This portion of the charge was given after the court had told the jury that it was the duty of the driver, in keeping a proper lookout, to take such precautions as an ordinarily prudent person would take under all the circumstances; that ordinarily a driver is not held to as high a degree of care in anticipating the presence of pedestrians at places in the highway other than crosswalks as he is in anticipating their presence at crosswalks, but that he is by no means absolved of all duty to anticipate the possible presence of a pedestrian at a place other than a crosswalk; and that both the driver and the pedestrian must exercise care commensurate to the danger involved, each party anticipating the exercise by the other of his legal right to the use of the highway. The quoted portion of the charge followed immediately thereafter. The obvious purpose of the court was to point out that the defendant operator could not reasonably assume that the plaintiff, a boy of tender...
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Intelisano v. Greenwell
...case, and in view of the entire charge on the issue, we cannot say that there was harmful error in this instruction. Pareles v. McCarthy, 149 Conn. 238, 244, 178 A.2d 155. The third claim of error urged by Intelisano is that the trial court erred in charging the jury on the doctrine of the ......
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Baker v. Mason
...instructions could not have prejudiced the appellant so as to require a reversal of the trial court's judgment. In Pareles v. McCarthy (1962), 149 Conn. 238, 178 A.2d 155, the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut, in a case very similar to the case at bar, held that a 'sudden emergency's ......
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Mei v. Alterman Transport Lines, Inc.
...shown in evidence which are to be considered by the trier in determining whether an operator exercised due care. Pareles v. McCarthy 149 Conn. 238, 243, 178 A.2d 155. 'The doctrine applies only in cases in which the operator is suddenly confronted by a situation not of his own making and ha......
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Faulkner v. Waterman
...instruction, but that the trial court's error was harmless, 1 Justice Hunter quoted with approval from Pareles v. McCarthy (1962), 149 Conn. 238, 178 A.2d 155, a part of which quotation we here "There is nothing here which would justify the jury in concluding that the operator was confronte......