Maldonado v. Flannery

Citations

• 200 Conn. App. 1

Syllabus

The plaintiffs, M and H, sought to recover damages from the defendants for personal injuries they allegedly sustained in a motor vehicle accident in which their vehicle was struck by a vehicle driven by the named defendant. Following a trial, at which M and H testified, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiffs, awarding them economic damages but no noneconomic damages. Thereafter, the trial court granted the plaintiffs' joint motion for additurs, ordered additurs of $8000 to the award to M and $6500 to the award to H, and rendered judgment in favor of the plaintiffs. On the defendants' appeal to this court, held that the trial court abused its discretion in granting the plaintiffs' motion for additurs; that court failed to identify the part of the trial record that supported its conclusion that the jury's failure to award noneconomic damages was unreasonable under the facts of this case; moreover, even if the court had sufficiently identified facts in the record to support its order of additurs, this court, after having undertaken a fact intensive analysis, determined that the jury reasonably could have concluded that the plaintiffs failed to prove any noneconomic damages for pain and suffering caused by the subject accident, given the inconsistent and conflicting testimony and evidence, and the jury could have determined that the plaintiffs lacked credibility. Argued May 29—officially released September 8, 2020