Rosenstein v. Fair Haven & W. R. Co.
| Decision Date | 09 June 1905 |
| Citation | 60 A. 1061,78 Conn. 29 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | ROSENSTEIN v. FAIR HAVEN & W. R. CO. STARR BOTTLING WORKS v. SAME. |
Appeal from City Court of New Haven; Edwin C. Dow, Judge.
Action by Harry Rosenstein against the Fair Haven & Westville Railroad Company, and action by the Starr Bottling Works against the same defendant. In each case there was a judgment for plaintiff, and an appeal by defendant. Reversed.
Harry G. Day and Henry H. Townshend, for appellant. Maxwell Slade and David H. Slade, for appellees.
These two cases arose out of the same occurrence, and were tried together. The plaintiffs claimed to have proven that the plaintiff in the first case, a member of the copartnership plaintiff in the second, was driving with a horse, wagon, and harness belonging to said copartnership through one of the streets of New Haven through which the defendant operates a double-track, overhead, electric trolley line, when, approaching the curb, the horse stepped into a pool of water, and thereby became shocked with electricity which was escaping from the defendant's wires and iron poles used in transmitting the electric current employed by it in the operation of its cars, leaped into the air, and fell to the ground, thereby injuring the horse, wagon, and harness, and throwing said plaintiff out upon the ground, severely injuring him. They claimed also to have proved that said escape of electricity was due to the defendant's failure to perform its duty under the circumstances. The allegations of the complaint charging negligence on the part of the defendant, and averring the absence of contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff, were denied; and the defendant claimed to have proven that it did its full duty in the premises, and that the accident was due to no failure on its part to exercise the high degree of care required of it under the circumstances.
All the assignments of error, save only a single one in the latter case, relate to the charge. Specific errors in the instructions given are pointed out, but the complaint which is the dominating one, and which gathers around it most, if not all, of the others, is one that the charge, taken as a whole, was so indefinite and uncertain in its terms, so contradictory in its parts, and so inadequate in its scope and tenor, that it furnished no proper guidance for the jury.
It was incumbent upon the court to state to the jury the issues which were presented for its determination upon the evidence, and such principles of law as might be necessary for their proper determination upon the facts as they should be found to exist. This statement it was the duty of the court to make in as simple, orderly, clear, and precise a manner as it reasonably could under the circumstances. In the performance of its duty in the present cases, the court confined its own personal instructions to a few general observations at the beginning of the charge. These contained a few sentences only, which were devoted to an explanation of the issues or the law pertinent to their decision. The balance of the charge was confined entirely to a reading of the numerous requests filed by counsel, and the commendation of all save two of those presented by the defendant as embodying a correct statement of the law, and an elaboration of a third by adding a quotation from an opinion of this court. These instructions fill five pages of the printed record. The not unnatural result of this objectionable method was that a mass of unarranged and disjointed matter prepared by counsel in a partisan spirit and for a partisan purpose, extreme and partial in many of its statements, frequently argumentative in its character, and unmindful throughout of the true perspective of the case, was given to the jury, more perhaps to its confusion than its enlightenment. Had the subject-matter of these requests been unexceptionable in law, the purpose of a charge could scarcely have been well accomplished by the method employed. State v. Rathbun, 74 Conn. 524, 51 Atl. 540; Aikin v. Weckerly, 19 Mich. 482. In the present instance the normal dangers incident to the instruction of juries in the manner indicated were aggravated by the fact that the court was thus led into giving instruction upon vital matters in erroneous and contradictory ways, thus adding error and inconsistency to the list of the faults of the charge. An instance or two will illustrate the situation: The extent of the defendant's duty in the premises was, of course, a vital feature of the case, and it was all-important that instructions should be given which clearly and intelligently declared the law. The court read to the jury the defendant's fourth request, to the effect that there was no contractual relation between the plaintiffs and the...
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Katsetos v. Nolan
...in determining whether such evidence, which may be logically probative of a fact in issue, ought to be received. Rosenstein v. Fair Haven & W.R. Co., 78 Conn. 29, 34, 60 A. 1061. See Johnson v. Toscano, 144 Conn. 582, 593, 136 A.2d 341; Thibodeau v. Connecticut Co., 139 Conn. 9, 14, 89 A.2d......
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Dana-Robin Corp. v. Common Council of City of Danbury
...remoteness, cumulative nature, or other cause so lacks significance or materiality as to justify its exclusion. Rosenstein v. Fair Haven & W.R. Co., 78 Conn. 29, 34, 60 A. 1061.' Bjorkman v. Newington, 113 Conn. 181, 187, 154 A. 346; State v. Penn, 144 Conn. 148, 155, 127 A.2d 833. The cour......
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Lovejoy v. Town Of Darien.
...as was the ruling excluding testimony of a witness who had not worked on the ground for twenty-seven years. Rosenstein v. Fair Haven & W. R. Co., 78 Conn. 29, 34, 60 A. 1061. The owner was asked the following question on cross-examination for the purpose of showing that at the time he purch......
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Bridgeport L.A.W. Corp. v. Levy
... ... their decision with clear application to [110 Conn. 263] the ... issues. Rosenstein v. Fair Haven & Westville Ry ... Co., 78 Conn. 29, 32, 60 A. 1061; Shailer v ... Bullock, 78 ... ...