Robinson v. Connecticut Co.

• Decision Date: 01 December 1937
• Citation: 189 A. 453,122 Conn. 300
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: ROBINSON v. CONNECTICUT CO.

189 A. 453

122 Conn. 300

ROBINSON v. CONNECTICUT CO.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

December 1, 1937

Rehearing Denied Feb. 3, 1937.

Appeal from Superior Court, Fairfield County; Patrick B O'Sullivan, Judge.

Action by Laura L. Robinson against the Connecticut Company to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by the negligence of the defendant, brought to the superior court and tried to the jury. Verdict and judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals.

Error and new trial ordered.

MALTBIE, C.J., dissenting.

Raymond E. Baldwin, of Bridgeport, for appellant.

Philip Reich, of Bridgeport (Samuel Reich, of Bridgeport, on the brief), for appellee.

Argued before MALTBIE, C.J., and HINMAN, BANKS AVERY, and BROWN, JJ.

BANKS Judge.

The plaintiff was a passenger for hire in a bus operated by the defendant which came to a sudden stop, causing her to be thrown from her seat to the floor and to sustain injuries for which this action is brought. The appeal is from the trial court's denial of the defendant's motion to set aside the verdict in favor of the plaintiff. The plaintiff testified that the bus stopped very suddenly so that she was thrown headlong from her seat to the floor, and that she received severe injuries. She claimed that the jury might reasonably infer negligence from those facts alone. The defendant, as a common carrier of passengers for hire, was bound to use the utmost care consistent with the nature of its business to guard its passengers against all dangers which might reasonably and naturally be expected to occur, in view of all the circumstances. That the driver of defendant's bus failed to exercise the degree of care required of him in its operation could be proved either by direct evidence of what he did that was negligent, or by evidence of what took place as a physical fact showing indirectly that he was negligent. Work v. Boston Elevated Railway Co., 207 Mass. 447, 93 N.E. 693.

The plaintiff offered no direct evidence of what the driver did that was negligent other than her own testimony that the bus had stopped very suddenly. Such characterization of the manner of stopping the bus does not suffice as a description of an act of negligence. Belledeau v. Connecticut Co., 110 Conn. 625, 628, 149 A. 127. But the physical effect of the sudden stopping of the bus may be considered as a physical fact tending to show indirectly negligence in its operation. Belledeau v. Connecticut Co., supra; Rosenthal v. New York, N.H. & H. R. Co., 88 Conn. 65, 89 A. 888, 51 L.R.A.(N.S.) 775. A stop so sudden that it caused the plaintiff to be thrown headlong from her seat to the floor of the bus could reasonably be found to be so unusual as, in the absence of any explanation of its necessity, to justify an inference of negligence in the operation of the bus. As we said in the Rosenthal Case (at page 68 of 88 Conn., 89 A. 888, 889, 51 L.R.A. (N.S.) 775) with reference to the sudden stopping of a railroad train: " It is not asking too much of the defendant railroad that it should be put upon its explanation by evidence showing that the stop was uncommonly abrupt, and that it produced a physical consequence in itself unusual, from which the plaintiff's injury resulted." In the absence of explanation, the jury would have been justified in inferring negligence in the operation of the bus from its abrupt stop coupled with the resultant physical effect upon the plaintiff.

In the present case, however, unlike the situation in the Rosenthal and...