139 A. 688 | Conn. | 1927
The plaintiffs alleged and offered evidence to prove that, through the negligence of the defendants, who were employed by the plaintiffs to remove the old shingles from and reshingle a portion of the roof of the plaintiffs' house, the old shingles, after being removed, were ignited and the fire communicated to the house, which was destroyed together with its contents, as were certain ladders owned by the plaintiffs and which they claimed the defendants used in gaining access to the roof. The plaintiffs assign as error the refusal of the court to include in the charge an instruction that they were entitled to recover for the conversion of these ladders. The complaint, however, rested upon alleged negligence; no issue of conversion was presented or fairly suggested by the pleadings, and the loss or injury to the ladders as an element of damage for negligence was adequately included in the charge. The plaintiffs have no ground for complaint; they could not allege one cause of action and recover on another. Berman v. Kling,
During the cross-examination of defendant Bohinski the plaintiffs sought to have identified and to introduce in evidence a deed dated January 14th, 1927, from Bohinski to his wife, the offer being made as indicating a consciousness, on the part of this defendant, *158
of liability for damages in this action. In the few civil cases in which such conveyances have been admitted for this purpose, the transfer was made at a time in such close proximity to the occurrence upon which the claim of liability was based that, in view of its character and the surrounding circumstances, an inference that it was prompted by apprehended liability might reasonably be drawn therefrom. Chaufty
v. DeVries,
For the purpose of affecting the credibility of the defendant Bohinski, the plaintiffs offered two papers purporting to be records of the City Court of Meriden and claimed to show conviction of crime of such a nature as to be admissible for this purpose. The documents were excluded on the ground that, because of incompleteness and lack of authentication, they did not constitute admissible records. The alleged records, which are made part of the appeal record, appear to be original complaints and warrants, but contain no record or statement of the disposition of the cases except informal and fragmentary notes or memoranda written on the face of the file and unsigned by either the judge or the clerk of the court. While in the case of city and police courts, as well as justices of the peace, in view of the nature of their duties and the *159
circumstances under which they are discharged, some informalities in nonessential details of their records may well be overlooked, yet, in order to be admissible in evidence, a record must contain the necessary ingredients, at least informally. O'Connell v. HotchkissCo.,
During the trial, questions were twice asked by defendants' counsel from which an intimation might be drawn that the plaintiffs carried fire insurance on the burned property. Objections thereto were sustained, and in each instance the court at once instructed the jury that the question of insurance had no bearing on the case and the mention thereof should be disregarded. That the same admonition was not repeated in the charge, although no request to that effect was made, *160
affords the appellants no ground for complaint. Pelton
v. Goldberg,
There is no error.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.
