24 A.2d 834 | Conn. | 1942
The finding, with such collections as the evidence requires, may be summarized as follows: Transylvania Road runs north from Southbury to Woodbury. It has an oiled surface about twelve or thirteen feet wide. At the place of accident the road is straight for about five hundred feet, this straight section being terminated by curves at both the south and north ends. Just south of the northerly curve there is a high bank on the west side of the road. The accident occurred on September 6, 1938, and on that day the road north of the northerly curve was being oiled. This work was not visible to a person traveling north on the straight stretch of road nor were there any signs warning of danger. The work was in charge of the plaintiff, second selectman of Woodbury, sixty-one years of age. He was quite lame and also suffered from heart trouble. He had taken a position some distance south of the northerly curve to stop traffic from proceeding on the oiled but unsanded portion of the highway. He was dressed in working clothes and had no badge, flag or other device indicative of his authority.
The defendant Bartholomero Aloisi, as agent of the other defendants, was driving an empty truck north toward Woodbury at thirty or forty miles per hour. When he entered the straight stretch, he saw or should have seen the plaintiff but did not slow down. Just *583 before he reached the plaintiff he swerved to his left (west), put on his brakes hard and stopped five or six feet south of the point where the plaintiff had been standing, headed in a northwesterly direction and close to where the plaintiff was lying after the accident. When the plaintiff heard the approach of the defendants' truck as it entered the straight stretch, he was standing west of the center of the highway. He waved both arms vigorously and walked southerly, first east and then west of the center of the highway. When he was somewhat to the west side of the road, the driver of the truck suddenly swerved to his left. Thereupon the plaintiff made a leap or jump for the bank on the west side of the highway, fell just in front of the truck and seriously injured his lame leg. The truck did not strike the plaintiff.
The failure of the driver of the truck to slow down and his turning to the left, the side on which the plaintiff was standing waving his arms, form a sufficient basis to support the conclusion that he was negligent. This would be obviously so if he had known that the plaintiff was engaged in directing traffic. Beyrent v. Kaplan,
Both the finding and memorandum of decision show that the question of the contributory negligence of the plaintiff was carefully considered by the trial court. The trial court could reasonably conclude that it was not negligence on his part to assume that the truck driver would heed his warning. Rozycki v. Yantic *584
Grain Products Co.,
The principal claim of the defendants is that the corrections in the finding materially vary the conditions governing the conclusions of the trial court and that they are therefore entitled to a new trial. Papa v. Landow Co., Inc.,
There is no error.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.