Prizio v. Penachio
| Decision Date | 01 May 1959 |
| Citation | 152 A.2d 507,146 Conn. 452 |
| Parties | John PRIZIO v. Anthony PENACHIO. Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
Joseph G. Shapiro, Bridgeport, with whom were John H. Welch, Jr., Bridgeport, and, on the brief, Milton H. Belinkie, Bridgeport, for appellant (defendant).
Charles R. Covert, Bridgeport, with whom was H. Mefford Runyon, Bridgeport, for appellee (plaintiff).
Before DALY, C. J., and BALDWIN, KING, MURPHY and MELLITZ, JJ.
The plaintiff was four years of age at the time of the accident. He brought this negligence action by his father and next friend, claiming damages for the injuries he received when he was struck by a laundry truck owned by the defendant Anthony Penachio and driven by his employee George Redding. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff and the defendant has appealed. He has assigned error in the denial of his motion to set the verdict aside because it is against the evidence and is excessive.
The jury could have found these facts: The accident occurred on June 7, 1954, on Anderson Street in Stamford. This street runs north and south through a residential neighborhood, is straight and level, and has a blacktop pavement. It is very narrow, being only sixteen and one-half feet wide between curbings. Traffic is northbound only. On the day of the accident, the plaintiff and his mother were visiting relatives who lived on the east side of Anderson Street. Just north of the house on their premises there was a driveway wide enough to admit two automobiles abreast. It came from the rear of the premises and ended in a ramp across a five-foot sidewalk. A truck was parked on the west side of the street opposite the driveway. These material facts appear to be undisputed.
The defendant claimed that his truck was proceeding north at a moderate speed on the right-hand side of the street and was approaching the driveway when the plaintiff suddenly appeared from between two cars parked in the driveway and ran into the side of the defendant's truck. The driver stopped immediately. The plaintiff claimed that he was standing on the ramp of the driveway, about five to six inches east of the curb line, with his back to the street, when he was struck by the side of the truck. The defendant contends that, regardless of which version of the accident is accepted, the plaintiff is not entitled to a verdict. In connection with the plaintiff's version, the defendant points to the evidence of a tire mark fifteen feet long, made, presumably, by the right rear wheel of the defendant's truck. This tire mark extended to a point about opposite the middle of the driveway and was parallel to, and eight to ten inches west of, the curb line of the street. The defendant argues that the side of his truck did not extend far enough beyond the wheels to make it physically possible for the truck to strike the plaintiff if he was standing five to six inches east of the curb line.
From the pictures of the truck offered in evidence and showing its overall width, the jury could find that the side of the truck extended beyond the wheels and that protruding from it was a guardrail. There was testimony that the guardrail protruded four inches. The plaintiff, by a motion for disclosure, required the defendant to answer certain interrogatories as to the measurements of the truck. It is upon some of these answers that the defendant now bases his claim that the physical facts refute the plaintiff's version of the accident as a matter of law. It does not appear that the interrogatories and the answers to them were admitted in evidence or that there was other testimony of all of the measurements stated in them. The jury did have before it evidence that the driver of the truck, in order to pass the truck parked opposite the driveway, was compelled, as he testified, to go very close to the easterly curb; that his truck could not have been any farther to the right and still be on the street;...
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...to attribute to any evidence whatever weight it feels is merited. Hyde v. Pizzuto, 151 Conn. 701, 195 A.2d 53 (1963); Prizio v. Penachio, 146 Conn. 452, 152 A.2d 507 (1959). " 'If the jury could reasonably have reached their conclusion the verdict must stand.' Novella v. Hartford Accident &......
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