Sanchez v. Hartford

Citations

• 227 Conn. App. 771

Syllabus

The plaintiff sought to recover damages from the defendants, the city of Hartford and D, a police officer employed by the city, in connection with injuries he sustained when a motorcycle he was driving collided with D's police vehicle. At the time of the accident, the plaintiff was driving through an intersection with a green light, and D, who was responding to an emergency call, accelerated his vehicle through the same intersection with a red light. D activated the lights and sirens on his vehicle pursuant to statute (§ 14-283) only as he entered the intersection, not before. The plaintiff alleged that D's negligence had caused his injuries and that the city was required to indemnify D pursuant to the municipal indemnification statute (§ 7-465). After a trial, the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff against both defendants, and the trial court rendered judgment in accordance with the verdict. On the defendants' appeal to this court, held: 1. The defendants could not prevail on their claim that it was plain error for the trial court to instruct the jury on common-law principles of negligence regarding the operation of a motor vehicle and to fail to instruct the jury that D, as an operator of an emergency vehicle, was permitted to disregard driving statutes, ordinances and regulations: recent decisions by our Supreme Court, including Adesokan v. Bloom- field (347 Conn. 416) and Daley v. Kashmanian (344 Conn. 464), sup- ported a claim that the law is unsettled with respect to whether common- law negligence principles apply in the context of § 14-283; moreover, the instructions to the jury regarding negligence in this case did not amount to an error so obvious on its face that it was undebatable, as the court's instructions adequately apprised the jury on the applicable exception to the ordinary rules of driving triggered on satisfaction of the requirements of § 14-283. 2. The defendants could not prevail on their claim that the trial court commit- ted plain erro