Petrizzo v. Commercial Contractors Corp.

• Decision Date: 17 March 1965
• Citation: 208 A.2d 748,152 Conn. 491
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Thomas J. PETRIZZO et al. v. COMMERCIAL CONTRACTORS CORPORATION. Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut

Page 748

208 A.2d 748

152 Conn. 491

Thomas J. PETRIZZO et al. v. COMMERCIAL CONTRACTORS CORPORATION.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

March 17, 1965.

Morris W. Mendlesohn, New Haven, with whom was Charles Henchel, New Haven, for the appellant (defendant).

James R. Greenfield, New Haven, for the appellee (named plaintiff), with whom, on the brief, was Francis J. Moran, New Haven, for the appellee (plaintiff Northeast Coastal, Inc.).

Before KING, C. J., and MURPHY, ALCORN, COMLEY and SHANNON, JJ.

ALCORN, Associate Justice.

The plaintiff Thomas J. Petrizzo sued to recover damages for personal injuries sustained when steel beams, which had been loaded on a truck by the defendant, fell from the truck as they were being unloaded. Petrizzo claimed that his injuries were due to the defendant's negligence in improperly loading the truck. The defendant pleaded special defenses of contributory negligence and assumption of risk and has appealed from the judgment rendered on a verdict for Petrizzo. Error is assigned in rulings on evidence, in the court's refusal to charge as requested, and in the denial of the defendant's motions to set aside the verdict and for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. Some of the basic facts appear in the opinion in Commercial Contractors Corporation v. American Ins. Co., 152 Conn. 31, 33, 202 A.2d 498.

We consider first the errors assigned in the court's refusal to charge as requested and in the rulings on evidence, both of which must be tested by the finding. Petrizzo claimed to have proved the following facts: He went to work about 8 a. m. on October 3, 1956. He drove his employer's empty tractor-trailer truck to Bridgeport where the defendant was demolishing a building. The trailer was thirty-two feet long, eight feet wide and of a flatbed type with no sides, but with fifteen stakes on each side. He left the trailer to be loaded by the defendant while he engaged in other work for his employer and rested two or three hours. During the day, the defendant loaded the trailer with two piles of steel of varying lengths, shapes and sizes, one pile in the front half and the other in the rear half of the trailer. On top of them, seven I beams, each thirty to thirty-five feet long and each weighing about one and one-half tons, were laid. To load the steel in this way was improper and unsafe, and Petrizzo so informed the defendant's president. The latter insisted that the load was safe and threatened to speak to Petrizzo's boss and have him 'fired' unless he drove it to Wilmington, Delaware. Between 5 and 8 p. m. Petrizzo 'washed up', ate his supper and, about 8 p. m., started with the load, for Wilmington. The load did not shift on the way, and he arrived at his destination at about 4 o'clock the next morning. He was unable to enter the yard where the load was to be delivered until about noon, and so he slept in the truck until then. After entering the consignee's yard, he removed chains with which the load was strapped and removed about five stakes from one side of the trailer. The load thereupon shifted, and some of the steel fell from the trailer and struck and injured Petrizzo. Before removing the chains or starting to knock out the stakes, he had no reason to believe the steel was likely to fall, and it would not have fallen if it had been properly loaded.

The defendant claimed to have proved the following facts: The steel was properly and safely loaded in accordance with standard practice. If it had been improperly loaded, neither chains nor stakes nor both would have held it if it shifted during transit. Petrizzo had no difficulty during the 200-mile trip from Bridgeport to Wilmington over a route containing curves and hills. The load arrived at its destination in apparently safe condition and in the same position in which it left Bridgeport. The defendant had nothing to do with the unloading. The consignee, and not the truck driver, is expected to do the unloading. The safe procedure is to secure the steel with a cradle or sling attached to a crane before removing either chains or stakes. The stakes are a safety factor and should never be removed from the load. Nevertheless, Petrizzo removed the chains and started to hammer out the stakes before any cradle or sling had been attached to the load, knowing that the load was unsafe.

The defendant assigns error in the court's refusal to give sixteen requests to charge. Seven of them relate to the issue of Petrizzo's contributory negligence, four relate to the foreseeability of injury or harm, three relate to the assumption of risk, one concerns Petrizzo's experience as a truck driver, and another, the applicability of General Statutes § 14-274. None requires extended discussion. In its brief the defendant states only that the requests to charge should have been given because of the authorities cited in them. This imposes no duty on us to examine them. Dreher v. Smith, 132 Conn. 472, 475, 45 A.2d 712. The requests, in their several groupings, violate § 252 of the Practice Book in attempting to state, in different forms, the same principle of law as applied to a single issue. Vital issues in the trial concerned Petrizzo's actions in undertaking to remove the chains and stakes on the truck preparatory to unloading the steel, as bearing on the special defenses of contributory negligence and assumption of risk. The court charged in nearly the precise language of many of the requests. The charge which the court gave on the issues of contributory negligence and assumption of risk was accurate and adequate for the guidance of the jury. Doe v. Saracyn Corporation, 138 Conn. 69, 75, 77, 82 A.2d 811. The requests to charge on the foreseeability of harm were inaccurate statements of the law, but the correct principle was charged by the court. Noebel v. Housing Authority, 146 Conn. 197, 201, 148 A.2d 766; Attardo v. Ambriscoe, 147 Conn. 708, 712, 166 A.2d 458. The defendant requested a charge that, in determining whether the defendant exercised due care in loading the trailer, the jury should consider Petrizzo's 'considerable experience' as a truck driver. That request was properly refused since there was no support for it in the claims of proof in the finding. Pischitto v. Waldron, 147 Conn. 171, 176, 158 A.2d 168. Finally, the defendant requested a charge based on General Statutes § 14-274, which relates to the working hours of commercial motor vehicle operators in Connecticut. The court correctly refused the request both because it incorrectly stated the purport of the statute and because the claims of proof failed to support the statute's applicability. Boileau v. Williams, 121 Conn. 432, 438, 185 A. 429.

We turn then to the six claims of error in the rulings on evidence. The rulings fall into three classes. In the first, Petrizzo was asked on cross-examination whether it made any difference to the defendant whether the steel was sent in one truck or in ten trucks. The court excluded the question on the ground that it called for an answer concerning matters not within the witness' knowledge. The ruling was correct. Two rulings dealt with the issue of assumption of risk. Petrizzo was asked on redirect examination whether he had any reason to believe that the load was going to fall when he was taking the chains off the load or when he was hammering the stakes out of the side of the trailer. Each question was objected to on the ground that the answer called for Petrizzo's opinion on an ultimate issue for the jury. The court admitted each question. The...