Argued
April 9, 2018
Procedural
History
Action
to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by the
plaintiff allegedly caused by the defendant's negligent
operation of a motor vehicle, and for other relief, brought
to the Superior Court in the judicial district of Hartford
and tried to a jury before Dubay, J.; verdict and
judgment for the defendant, from which the plaintiff appealed
to this court. Affirmed.
Juri
E. Taalman, with whom, on the brief, were Taylor Equi and
Timothy Brignole, for the appellant (plaintiff).
Jude
Francois, for the appellee (defendant).
Prescott, Elgo and Blawie, Js.
OPINION
ELGO,
J.
In this
negligence action, the plaintiff, Ellen Farmer-Lanctot,
appeals from the judgment rendered on a general verdict in
favor of the defendant, Matthew Shand. On appeal, the
plaintiff claims that the trial court improperly denied the
plaintiff's request for a jury charge on (1) the sudden
emergency doctrine, (2) the standard of care for a pedestrian
in a roadway, and (3) the defendant's duty to yield to
pedestrians when making a right-hand turn. We disagree and,
accordingly, affirm the judgment of the trial court.
On the
basis of the evidence presented at trial, the jury reasonably
could have found the following facts. On December 31, 2014,
the plaintiff and her husband attended a New Year's Eve
gathering hosted by Lisa Salazar and Mike Kraman at their
residencein the Wynding Hills Road residential subdivision in
East Granby (Wynding Hills). Attendees of the gathering also
included Carol Lindberg and five others. At approximately 9
p.m. the plaintiff and other attendees of the gathering left
the residence and headed out to take a hike through the woods
up to a cliff. The group was equipped with headlamps and
lights for the hike.
On
their way back from the cliff, the group walked down Tunxis
Avenue toward Wynding Hills to return to the Salazar and
Kraman residence. The group walked into the exit road of the
subdivision and began ascending a hill. A grassy center
island of the road separated the entrance road and the exit
road of the subdivision. At some point prior to walking into
the exit of Wynding Hills, the group shut off their lights.
At approximately 10:30 p.m., a car, driven by the defendant,
was traveling downhill in Wynding Hills toward the exit. At
the time, the plaintiff was in the middle of the exit road
with Carol Lindberg and was walking up the road. The car
traveled around a curve at the bottom of the hill onto the
Wynding Hills exit road, spotted the group walking in the
road, and stopped prior to reaching the group. Upon seeing
the headlights of the defendant's car approaching, the
plaintiff jumped out of the road and into the grassy center
island of the road approximately twenty-five feet from the
curve. The plaintiff testified that she jumped out of the
road and over the front corner of the defendant's vehicle
because she thought that she was going to be hit by the
defendant's vehicle. Consequently, the plaintiff suffered
a broken arm.
The
plaintiff subsequently commenced the present action, claiming
that she suffered personal injuries, economic damages, and
noneconomic damages of pain and suffering proximately caused
by the defendant's negligence. In his answer, the
defendant denied that he was negligent in the operation of
his vehicle. In addition, as a special defense, the defendant
alleged that the plaintiff's own negligence was the
proximate cause of her injuries. The case was tried to a
jury, but no interrogatories were submitted to it. Following
trial, the jury returned a general verdict in favor of the
defendant and the court rendered judgment accordingly. This
appeal followed.
Before
addressing the merits of the plaintiff's claim, we first
determine whether the general verdict rule applies and
precludes our review.[1] ‘‘Under the general verdict
rule, if a jury renders a general verdict for one party, and
no party requests interrogatories, an appellate court will
presume that the jury found every issue in favor of the
prevailing party. . . . Thus, in a case in which the general
verdict rule operates, if any ground for the verdict is
proper, the verdict must stand; only if every ground is
improper does the verdict fall. . . . The rule rests on the
policy of the conservation of judicial resources, at both the
appellate and trial levels. . . .
‘‘On
the appellate level, the rule relieves an appellate court
from the necessity of adjudicating claims of error that may
not arise from the actual source of the jury verdict that is
under appellate review. In a typical general verdict rule
case, the record is silent regarding whether the jury verdict
resulted from the issue that the appellant seeks to have
adjudicated. Declining in such a case to afford appellate
scrutiny of the appellant's claims is consistent with the
general principle of appellate jurisprudence that it is the
appellant's responsibility to provide a record upon which
reversible error may be predicated. . . .
‘‘In
the trial court, the rule relieves the judicial system from
the necessity of affording a second trial if the result of
the first trial potentially did not depend upon the trial
errors claimed by the appellant. Thus, unless an appellant
can provide a record to indicate that the result the
appellant wishes to reverse derives from the trial errors
claimed, rather than from the other, ...