Squires v. Wolcott.
| Decision Date | 05 March 1947 |
| Citation | 133 Conn. 449,52 A.2d 305 |
| Parties | SQUIRES v. WOLCOTT. |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from Superior Court, Hartford County; Comley, Judge.
Action by Dorothy Squires against Janet M. Wolcott for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by negligence of defendant. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals.
No error.
Daniel D. Morgan, of New Haven, for appellant.
Robert I. Ellis, of Hartford, for appellee.
Before MALTBIE, C. J., and BROWN, JENNINGS, ELLS, and DICKENSON, JJ.
Two automobiles collided within the intersection of Capitol Avenue and Forest Street in Hartford, and in the ensuing action for damages the trial court found that the defendant was negligent in the operation of her car, that her negligence was the proximate cause of the collision and that the plaintiff was free from contributory negligence. Upon this appeal from a judgment for the plaintiff, the only question presented relates to contributory negligence.
The finding has not been attacked. Capitol Avenue runs east and west, and is intersected on the north by Forest Street, which runs generally north and south and does not cross Capitol Avenue. Capitol Avenue is a through street. Forest Street is a stop street with a stop sign located thirty-four feet north of the northerly curb line of Capitol Avenue. The intersection of the two streets is not at right angles, because Forest Street runs southwesterly at the point where it joins Capitol Avenue. There was a curved white line painted on the pavement leading from Forest Street in a southeasterly direction into Capitol Avenue, and another such line leading in a southwesterly direction into it. These lines were dotted with metal buttons hammered into the pavement.
The plaintiff was driving southerly on Forest Street. She stopped her car at the stop sign, intending the make a left-hand or southeasterly turn into Capitol Avenue. As the front of her car was entering Capitol Avenue the motor stalled; she started it and continued to make the left turn, following the southeasterly line painted on the pavement. At the time she started the motor and resumed her course she saw the defendant's car traveling west on Capitol Avenue, on the northerly side of the road one hundred and fifty-five feet easterly of the point of the ultimate collision, at a speed of about thirty miles an hour. The defendant did not reduce her speed until she was about fifty feet from the easterly curb line of Forest Street, at which time she applied her brakes and turned to the left. Because of the slippery condition of the pavement her car skidded and the right front portion of it struck the left front of the plaintiff's car. For about an hour before the collision a mixture of snow and rain had been falling so that the pavements were slippery and the white lines painted thereon were not visible. Daily, on her way home from work, the plaintiff had made the left-hand turn into Capitol Avenue, and she knew about the southeasterly white line painted on the pavement and was in the habit of following it. At the time in question she followed the location of this line and in so doing did not go to her right of the intersection of the center lines of the two streets, for the angle of the intersection was such that the point where the painted line meets the center of Capitol Avenue is at least sixty feet easterly of the point where the center lines of the two streets intersect. If a driver making a left turn from Forest Street into Capitol Avenue went to the right of the intersection of the center lines of the two streets, he would be compelled to bear to his right across the major portion of the intersection and then make a sharp left turn.
As the plaintiff in her complaint alleged that she was in the exercise of due care, it was incumbent upon her to prove it. Colligan v. Reilly, 129 Conn. 26, 28, 26 A.2d 231. In making a left turn she did not keep to the right of the intersection of the centers of the two highways. The trial court, by stating that the plaintiff ‘followed’ the white line, evidently meant that she kept to the right of it, as both parties have apparently assumed in their presentation of the case. The plaintiff was negligent unless the exception contained in the applicable rule of the road permitted her to take this course. In its application to the present situation, General Statutes, Cum.Sup.1939, § 544e, provides that ‘any person shall, at the intersection of public highways, keep to the right of the intersection of the centers of such highways when turning to the left, except when otherwise directed by a local ordinance or traffic officer, signal or sign.’ The word ‘sign’ can properly be construed to include lines upon the pavement placed there for the purpose of directingtraffic. Lines on the...
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...Judges concurred. 1 Crowley v. Dix, 136 Conn. 97, 103, 68 A.2d 366; Prato v. Coffey, 135 Conn. 445, 447, 66 A.2d 113; Squires v. Wolcott, 133 Conn. 449, 455, 52 A.2d 305; Lassow v. Bulkley, 132 Conn. 476, 477, 45 A.2d 714; Weimer v. Brock-Hall Dairy Co., 131 Conn. 361, 365, 40 A.2d 277; Pec......
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...162 Conn. 332, 336 n. 3, 294 A.2d 504 (1972) (judicial notice of state police department regulation); see also Squires v. Wolcott, 133 Conn. 449, 453, 52 A.2d 305 (1947) (judicial notice of state traffic commission regulation); Roden v. Connecticut Co., 113 Conn. 408, 415-16, 155 A.721 (193......
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...plaintiff, in his complaint, alleged that he was in the exercise of due care, it was incumbent upon him to prove it. Squires v. Wolcott, 133 Conn. 449, 452, 52 A.2d 305; Colligan v. Reilly, 129 Conn. 26, 28, 26 A.2d 231; Boyd v. Geary, 126 Conn. 396, 399, 12 A.2d 644; Yanez v. DeRosa, 118 C......