Pischitto v. Waldron

• Decision Date: 02 February 1960
• Citation: 147 Conn. 171,158 A.2d 168
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Joseph PISCHITTO v. Elmore W. WALDRON. Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut

Page 168

158 A.2d 168

147 Conn. 171

Joseph PISCHITTO v.Elmore W. WALDRON.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

Feb. 2, 1960.

Milton H. Belinkie, Bridgeport, with whom, on the brief, were Joseph G. Shapiro and John H. Welch, Jr., Bridgeport, for the appellant(defendant).

Theodore I. Koskoff, Bridgeport, with whom were Robert R. Petrucelli, Bridgeport, and, on the brief, Eli H. Millner, Danbury, for appellee(plaintiff).

Before BALDWIN, C. J., and KING, MURPHY, MELLITZ and SHEA, JJ.

KING, Associate Justice.

The defendant claims that the court erroneously denied his motion to set aside the verdict as against the evidence.The jury might have found the following facts: Route 7, in Danbury, runs generally north and south, and at the locus of the accident consists of a concrete traveled portion twenty feet wide and asphalt shoulders each eight feet wide.About 8:30 in the evening of April 30, 1957, the plaintiff was operating his two-door Pontiac car southerly along route 7, intending to visit an ice-cream stand which was situated westerly of the highway and reached by two driveways separated by a grassy island located at the edge of the westerly shoulder of the highway and directly in front of the ice-cream stand.The plaintiff applied his directional signal and made a rotary motion with his left arm extended, to indicate his intention of turning right into the more northerly driveway.Seeing that it was blocked by parked cars, he drove his car astride the westerly edge of the concrete portion of the highway to the southerly driveway.He continued to give the mechanical and manual directional signals.As the plaintiff was about to reach the southerly driveway, the defendant's truck, approaching from the south, collided with the plaintiff's car, causing the plaintiff's left arm to be severed about eight inches below the shoulder.The impact between the two vehicles was slight, resulting in a dent in the area of the left front headlight of the plaintiff's car, a scrape mark along the left front fender, a dent on the front edge of the left door, and the breaking off of the doorhandle.The damage to the truck was even less.A tubular metal step near the rear of the left side was bent, as was the left side of the rear bumper.The glass in the left window of the plaintiff's car, back of the door, was smashed, and streaks of blood ran down the door panel.

The defendant claims that the physical facts preclude the acceptance of the plaintiff's version of the collision.This claim is without merit.The most that could be claimed was that the plaintiff was mistaken in estimating that the defendant's truck was only thirty feet away when it came over on his side of the road.This was not an exact measurement.The jury were entitled to find, as they obviously did, that the defendant's truck grazed the plaintiff's car, knocking his extended left arm back against the window of his car with such force as to shatter the glass and shear off the arm, which was found on the west shoulder of the road a little south of the island in front of the ice-cream stand.The plaintiff brought his car to a stop 231 feet south of the island.A trail of blood extended along the middle of the west lane of the highway from where the car came to rest to a point some forty feet to the north.All this is corroborative of the plaintiff's claim that the collision occurred when the defendant's truck was on the plaintiff's side of the road.

The defendant also claims error in the denial of his motion to set aside, as excessive, the verdict of $90,000.The facts in this case were unusual in several respects.The plaintiff was a common laborer who had left school at the fourth grade and whose IQ is estimated to be 90.For the three years preceding the injury he had earned between $4000 and $4500 a year, and at the time of the accident he was receiving $93 a week.He was about forty-four years old at the time of trial and had an expectancy of about twenty-eight years.His opportunities for learning any other work are circumscribed by the paucity of his educational and mental attainments, and his usefulness as a laborer is seriously impaired by the loss of the arm.His pain and suffering were not inconsiderable and are not wholly at an end.The period of hospitalization was comparatively short, and the aggregate of the medical, surgical and hospital expenses was relatively low.However, expenses for replacement of prosthesis will recur as long as the plaintiff lives.The jury might reasonably have found that the plaintiff's past and future expenses for medical care, treatment and applicances would total over $8000.Nothing appears to have occurred during the trial to inflame the jury or prejudice them against the defendant.

The court's memorandum of decision contains a clear and painstaking analysis of the evidence bearing on the issue of damages.It is apparent that the rather unusual factual situation involved in this issue was carefully considered in the light of our rule.But for this, we might feel impelled to hold that the verdict, which was obviously liberal, was legally excessive.What we said in Butler v. Steck, 146 Conn. 114, 118, 148 A.2d 246, 248, may be adapted to the present case as follows: 'The only practical test to apply to this verdict is whether the award falls somewhere within the necessarily uncertain limits of just damages or whether the size of the verdict so shocks the sense of justice as to compel the conclusion that the jury mistook the law or were influenced by partiality, prejudice, mistake or corruption.McKirdy v. Cascio, 142 Conn. 80, 86, 111 A.2d 555, and cases cited;Mulcahy v. Larson, 130 Conn. 112, 114, 32 A.2d 161;Maltbie, Conn.App.Proc., § 197.This test must be applied in the first instance by the trial court.On appeal, we are reviewing primarily the action of the trial court.Joanis v. Engstrom, 135...