Seney v. Trowbridge

• Decision Date: 26 November 1940
• Citation: 127 Conn. 284,16 A.2d 573
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: SENEY v. TROWBRIDGE. BAY v. SAME.

16 A.2d 573

127 Conn. 284

SENEY v. TROWBRIDGE.

BAY v. SAME.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

November 26, 1940

Appeal from Superior Court, New London County; Edward J. Quinlan Judge.

Actions by Adah K. Seney and D. E. Washburn Bay against Bertha C Trowbridge to recover for personal injuries allegedly caused by negligence of defendant. The cases were tried together and resulted in verdict for defendant in each case. From order setting aside the verdict in each case for error in charge to jury, the defendant appeals.

Error and judgment on the verdict directer for defendant.

Joseph B. Morse, of New Haven, for appellant.

Arthur T. Keefe and Leon J. Bascom, both of New London, for appellees.

Argued before MALTBIE, C.J., and BROWN, AVERY, JENNINGS, and ELLS JJ.

BROWN Judge.

On the afternoon of August 6, 1938, the plaintiff Seney, accompanied by the plaintiff Bay as passenger, was driving her Dodge sedan with trailer attached, westerly on the Boston Post Road in the town of Old Lyme. Meantime at a point ahead of the plaintiffs' car, the defendant drove her Packard sedan across the road from its south side to a point where the front wheels of her car had passed beyond the center line of the concrete roadway. The plaintiff Seney in an effort to avoid the defendant's car, swung her car to her right causing the right forward corner of the trailer to collide with a telephone pole on the north side of the road, resulting in the injuries and damage complained of. The highway was straight and level, and consisted of a concrete road 20 feet wide, with a hard shoulder 6 3/4 feet wide on the north, and one 5 feet wide on the south. Opposite the telephone pole and south of the south shoulder was a semicircular concrete driveway serving a house on that side of the road. The ends of this driveway where they joined the shoulder were 20 feet apart. The defendant, who had been driving easterly on the Post Road, for the purpose of turning around and proceeding westerly, had driven over this driveway and from its easterly end onto the highway to the position in which her car was at the time of the accident. There was no contact with the car of the defendant. These facts are undisputed. The evidence is in conflict as to whether just prior to the accident the defendant's car was continuing forward, backing, or having come to a stop shot forward again into the path of the plaintiff's car, and also as to the course which the defendant's car took. The cases were tried together and the jury rendered a verdict for the defendant in each. The court set aside both verdicts upon the ground that it had erred in its charge to the jury.

The court quoted the statute, § 637c of the 1935 Supplement to the General Statutes, providing that ‘ each driver of a vehicle, before slackening its speed, stopping or backing, shall indicate by signal his intention to slacken its speed or to stop or to back and, of he intends to turn or change his direction, * * * he shall indicate by signal such intention and the direction in which he intends to proceed,’ but failed to charge that a violation of the statute would constitute negligence as a matter of law, and it set aside the verdict for this reason. The court found that the plaintiffs offered evidence to prove and claimed to have proved that: At 50 feet away she noticed the defendant's car standing in the highway with its front end about on the middle line of the concrete roadway; she sounded her horn several times and the defendant's car continued to remain in the same position; the plaintiff proceeded slowly with ample room to pass; when her car got within 6 to 10 feet of the defendant's car it suddenly and without warning of any kind darted across the highway and over into the path of the plaintiff, the defendant giving ‘ no indication by signal of her intention to stop or back or of what she intended to do on the highway as the plaintiff approached’ ; and thereupon to avoid a collision, the plaintiff pulled her car to the right and the trailer collided with the pole. The defendant has assigned as error the inclusion by the court in the plaintiff's claims of proof of the statement above quoted concerning the defendant's failure to signal; and also its refusal to substitute for this a finding that the plaintiff offered no evidence and made no claim to this effect, her contention being that there was no evidence offered as to whether or not the defendant did give any such signal.

Assuming for the purposes of this discussion, that whether the defendant did fail to give the signal which the statute requires and so was negligent, is shown by the finding to have been an issue for the jury's determination, it is manifest that the plaintiff's claim of proof that she gave none, is the vital and essential one upon which this issue depends. In support of her attack upon the finding, the defendant urges that the inclusion of this claim cannot be sustained because there is no evidence in the case that she did fail to signal. The gist of the plaintiffs' contention is that though there is no such evidence, since the complaints expressly alleged that the defendant was negligent in failing ‘ to indicate by...