Wager v. Moore

Citations

• 193 Conn. App. 608

Syllabus

The plaintiff pedestrian sought to recover damages from the defendant for negligence for injuries she sustained when she was struck by a motor vehicle operated by the defendant. After the jury returned a verdict in favor of the defendant, the trial court denied the plaintiff's motion to set aside the verdict and rendered judgment in accordance with it, from which the plaintiff appealed to this court. Held: 1. The plaintiff could not prevail in her claim that the trial court erred when it denied her motion to set aside the verdict and for a new trial, which was based on her claim that there was insufficient evidence to support a finding of contributory negligence, the record having contained ample evidence that the plaintiff was negligent and that such negligence was a substantial factor in causing her injuries: there was evidence that the plaintiff was not in a designated crosswalk at the time of the collision, although there was a crosswalk approximately 750 feet down the road- way that would have been visible to the plaintiff and which she previously had used, that it was dark at the time of the collision and the plaintiff was wearing dark clothing, which the jury reasonably could have concluded would have made it difficult for the defendant to see her, that the plaintiff had ''popped out'' in front of the defendant's vehicle, that the area of the collision was flat and straight and that the plaintiff was intoxicated at the time of the collision, from which the jury could have inferred that the plaintiff walked or ran into the path of the defendant's vehicle and failed to yield the right-of-way to the defendant, that had the plaintiff been paying attention or keeping a proper lookout, she would have seen the defendant's vehicle in sufficient time to avoid the collision, and that the plaintiff was not exercising reasonable care to avoid harm to herself; moreover, the jury reasonably could have found that the plaintiff's negli- gence far exceeded the defendant's neg