131 A. 322 | Conn. | 1925
The direction of the verdict can be sustained in case the reasoning mind could not reasonably *676
reach another conclusion upon the evidence.Perry v. Haritos,
Upon this evidence there were two possible conclusions: *677 One, that the Ford car ran into the truck as the truck was passing it upon its left; the other, that the truck ran into the Ford car after it had passed the truck, either striking it in the rear or side, and dragging it along the pavement and overturning it upon its right side. That the Ford car had passed the truck before the collision is indisputable upon this evidence. The location of the overturned car upon the shoulder on the right side of the highway, and Mrs. Sarer, a guest in the car, found in the gutter on the right side of the highway, would justify the jury in making the reasonable inference that the truck collided with the car in its rear or left side rather than that the car ran into the truck, since in the latter case, the truck, passing the car on its left, neither the car nor the guest would be likely to be found in the position in which they were found. The scratches on the right side of the pavement would also permit reasonable inference that the car did not run into the truck near the center of this highway, and could not, in that condition, have been dragged for twenty feet along the pavement. The green paint upon the left front fender would have justified the jury in making reasonable inference that it came from the green truck and was not likely to have come upon the left front fender if the car ran into the truck, but was more likely to have been mashed upon it when the car was under the truck after the truck ran into it. If the jury believed that the car passed the five-ton truck at a speed of twenty-five to twenty-eight miles an hour, and had gone about thirty or forty feet beyond the truck when, shortly thereafter, the collision occurred, the jury would have been justified in disbelieving the driver of the truck that he had caught up to the car and, when about to pass it on its left, the car turned to the left and ran into the truck. The evidence could undoubtedly have been *678 clearer; as it stood, it did not afford any ground for the making or the granting of the motion.
A motion for a directed verdict, under our practice, should rarely be made. It is only permissible in the exceptional case. We repeat what we so recently said in Ulrich v. New York, N.H. H.R. Co.,
There is error and a new trial is ordered.