Fisk v. Redding

Citations

• 337 Conn. 361

Syllabus

The plaintiff, who sustained injuries when he fell off a retaining wall con- structed by the defendant town, sought to recover damages from the town. He claimed that the town created a public nuisance by constructing the wall without a fence on top of it. Following a trial, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the town. Thereafter, the plaintiff filed a motion to set aside the verdict, claiming that the jury's responses to certain interrogatories, in which it indicated that it had found that the wall was an inherently dangerous condition but was not an unreasonable or unlawful use of the land, were inconsistent. The trial court denied the motion and rendered judgment in accordance with the verdict, from which the plaintiff appealed to the Appellate Court. The Appellate Court concluded that, as a matter of law, the jury could not have determined that the retaining wall without a fence was both inherently dangerous and not an unreasonable use of the land. The Appellate Court further concluded that the wall constituted an unreasonable use of the land because it was inherently dangerous and lacked any social utility. The listing of justices reflects their seniority status on this court as of the date of oral argument. 362 AUGUST, 2021 337 Conn. 361 Fisk v. Redding Accordingly, the Appellate Court reversed the trial court's judgment and remanded the case for a new trial. On the granting of certification, the town appealed to this court. Held that the Appellate Court incorrectly concluded that the trial court had abused its discretion by denying the plaintiff's motion to set aside the verdict, as the jury's responses to the special interrogatories could be harmonized in light of this court's established public nuisance jurisprudence: the proper inquiry for determining the reasonableness of a defendant's use of the land is not whether the inherently dangerous condition alone is reasonable, but whether the defendant's use of the land constitutes a reasonable use in light