Pilon v. Alderman
| Decision Date | 07 November 1930 |
| Citation | 112 Conn. 300,152 A. 157 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | PILON v. ALDERMAN et al. |
Appeal from Superior Court, Hartford County; Edwin C. Dickenson Judge.
Action by Edward I. Pilon against Elliott Alderman and others, to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by the defendant's negligence. Verdict and judgment for defendants, and plaintiff appeals.
No error.
S Gerard Casale, of New Britain, for appellant.
Wilson C. Jainsen, of Hartford, and George T. Campbell, of Middletown, for appellees.
Argued before WHEELER, C.J., and MALTBIE, HAINES, HINMAN, and BANKS JJ.
The plaintiff was riding in an automobile, driven by his wife westerly on Hartford avenue in Farmington. Snow was falling, covering the highway to a depth of three or four inches and clinging to the windshields of cars. After following another car for some distance, the vehicle in which the plaintiff was riding skidded to its left onto trolley rails, straightened out, then skidded again diagonally to the left, across the highway, and stopped against the railing of a culvert about eight feet south of the traveled portion of the highway. The defendants' car, which had been traveling easterly on its right-hand side of the road, struck the car in which the plaintiff was riding near its center on the right side, and the plaintiff was injured by the collision. The crucial point in controversy was whether, as claimed by the plaintiff, the car in which he was seated had traveled across the road and stopped against the railing such a length of time before the impact that the defendant driver could and should have avoided the collision, or, as the defendant contended, the other car crossed so suddenly and so close in front that the collision was unavoidable by the defendant driver.
Error is assigned in that, in the portion of the charge relating to burden of proof, the court, after pointing out that collisions can and do occur without any one being legally to blame stated that: " So the law assumes in civil cases that the defendant is not to blame until or unless the plaintiff proves he is by a fair preponderance of the evidence." The context shows that " blame" was used in the sense of legal responsibility for consequences. Irrespective of whether the assumption mentioned be the root or reason of the rule regarding burden of proof, the reference thereto was an innovation which...
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Law v. Camp
...the simple and familiar words it employs." Mather v. Griffin Hosp., 207 Conn. 125, 130, 540 A.2d 666 (1988) (quoting Pilon v. Alderman, 112 Conn. 300, 301, 152 A. 157 (1930)). To establish proximate cause in a medical malpractice action, the plaintiff must adduce evidence to a reasonable de......
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Mather v. Griffin Hosp., 13154
...if the expression is susceptible of definition more understandable than the simple and familiar words it employs.' Pilon v. Alderman, [112 Conn. 300, 301, 152 A. 157 (1930) ]." Connellan v. Coffey, 122 Conn. 136, 141, 187 A. 901 (1936). ......
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Connellan v. Coffey
... ... Torts (Negligence), § 431(a). Charges so stating the rule ... have been consistently sustained. Smirnoff v. McNerney, ... supra; Pilon v. Alderman, 112 Conn. 300, ... 152 A. 157; Lupatin v. Shine, 117 Conn. 698, 169 A ... 916; Breed v. Philgas Co., 118 Conn. 128, 135, 171 ... ...
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Johnson v. Fiske
... ... expression is susceptible of definition more understandable ... than the simple and familiar words it employs.' Pilon ... v. Alderman, 112 Conn. 300, 301, 152 A. 157 ... [125 ... Conn. 449] The defendant further claims that the court's ... charge as to ... ...