Russell v. Vergason
| Decision Date | 10 November 1920 |
| Parties | RUSSELL v. VERGASON. |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
Appeal from Superior Court, New London County; John P. Kellogg Judge.
Action to recover damages for personal injuries by Mrs. Alice Russell against Frederick D. Vergason. From an order setting aside a verdict for her, the plaintiff appeals. Error, and cause remanded, with direction.
Abel P. Tanner and George C. Morgan, both of New London, for appellant.
Allan K. Smith, of Hartford, for appellee.
The trial court set aside the verdict, and the plaintiff appeals.
The jury might reasonably have found from the evidence offered by the plaintiff that she stepped from the stoop in front of Banning's store to the Norwich road, a highway in Norwich, in order to go straight across this highway to the only sidewalk upon it, and located on the west thereof; that as she did so she looked for conveyances approaching from the north, and, seeing none, continued on directly across the highway, traveling at a speed of about 3 miles an hour, covering the 18 feet to the double trolley tracks the 15 feet across them, and 20 feet over the surfaced part of this highway, and coming to within 3 feet of the sidewalk when she was struck by defendant's automobile, approaching from the north, and traveling at a speed of 20 to 25 miles an hour, and that the speed of the car did not slacken nor its bell sound before the accident.
It did not appear from the evidence offered by the plaintiff that she looked to the north, except when she stepped upon the highway from the store stoop. The trial court held that the plaintiff should have looked before entering upon the surfaced part of the highway, and based its conclusion upon its finding that no witness other than the plaintiff had testified upon this subject. The court was right in its legal conclusion as to the plaintiff's duty, inasmuch as she must be assumed to have known the danger from automobiles passing over this surfaced part of the highway, and the liability of one or more reaching the part of the highway she was crossing before she got on the sidewalk, although none were in sight when she looked on leaving the stoop, and her line of vision extended to the north for 250 feet.
But the court was wrong in its recollection of the evidence. Both the defendant and his wife and Dr. Kruck testified that when the plaintiff was upon the second trolley track she stopped and looked to the north at the approaching car. Finding the reason for the court's decision erroneous will not vitiate its decision in setting aside the verdict if upon other and legal grounds the same result must follow.
If the plaintiff's evidence be considered apart from that of other witnesses, her own conduct in failing from about the time she left the stoop to look for approaching conveyances upon this much-traveled highway must be held to be conduct exhibiting a want of reasonable care, and to have materially contributed to her injuries, and upon the case of the plaintiff as pleaded and tried she could not recover.
The plaintiff was in the zone of danger during all of the time she was crossing the surfaced part of the highway, and the jury may have found upon her testimony and that of Johnson that she walked across this surfaced way without stopping or looking to the north, and that the defendant saw her from the time she left the store stoop, and saw that she was proceeding in apparent unconciousness of his approach, and that from the time he saw her in this place of danger he neither sounded his horn nor gave her warning of his approach, but continued on at a speed of upwards of 20 miles an hour until about the time his car struck her, and that after he saw her in this position of danger he could have checked or stopped his car, or turned it to the east in time to have avoided the accident. It follows, as matter of law, that if the jury found these facts proven, the defendant's own negligence was the last proximate cause of the accident, and not that of the plaintiff in failing to...
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Clark v. Feldman
...for charges were, in substance, made applicable by the statute. Jurisch v. Puget Transportation Co. et al. supra; Russell v. Vergason, 95 Conn. 431, 111 A. 625. [5][6] We are of the opinion that the charge in question was further prejudicial to the plaintiff in that, in stating the effect o......
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Correnti v. Catino
... ... trial, preferably in [115 Conn. 216] a jury case by a request ... to charge. Mezzi v. Taylor, supra; Russell v ... Vergason, 95 Conn. 431, 434, 111 A. 625; Schmeiske ... v. Laubin, 109 Conn. 206, 211, 145 A. 890; Zenuk v ... Johnson, 114 Conn. 383, 158 ... ...
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Clark v. Feldman
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