28 Conn. 317 | Conn. | 1859
Three questions were raised in this case, and they will be considered in the order An which they stand upon the record. '
The defendant complains, in the first place, that the court erred in admitting the opinion of the witnesses, although connected with the facts on which the opinion was Based, upon the question whether the privies and sties described in the declaration were, or were not, nuisances, and so nuisances that they
The record shows, in the second place, that the plaintiff offered witnesses to prove that his wife, (deceased at the time of the trial,) complained of the offensive smells from the nuisances,
A man may recover, not only for injuries done to himself by a nuisance, but for those doné to his family. In this case the declaration contains an averment of annoyance to the family, and evidence to prove that averment was admissible. The motion shows that the wife w7as suffering from the nuisances. It is difficult to perceive why the complaint of a person suffering from a nuisance, may not be received as an £ *321 ] ^expression of bodily or mental feeling, and as original evidence, as well as in any other case of. annoyance or injury. Whether the annoyance or injury Were real or feigned was for the jury to determine, as. in all other cases of suffering and complaint.
The defendant complains, in the third place, that he proved, or offered evidence to prove, that the privy was not a nuisance, and asked the court to charge the jury that, if they so found, the verdict on the first count must be for the defendant. The court did not so charge, but instructed them that if they found either the privy or the sty to fcfe a nuisance they must find for the plaintiff on that count.
The claim of the plaintiff substantially is, that inasmuch as the sty was alleged to be a nuisance in both counts of the declaration, and the privy was alleged to be a nuisance in the first count only, he had a right, as a matter of law, to insist that the jury should not pass upon the allegations in the first count in relation to the sty, but as to that count should pass upon the privy alone, and regard no allegations in relation, to the sty excepting those contained in the second count.
This claim can not be sustained. By the law of Connecticut, a jury may return a general verdict; and the plaintiff has a right to have them pass upon all the allegations iri the declaration, and he is entitled to their verdict, if he sustains by his proof, any of the allegations showing a cause of action. The court had rio power, therefore, to withdraw7 the allegations of the first count in relation to the sty from the consideration of the jury, arid direct them to disregard those allegations; It would be a violation of all principle to do so in such .a case. And if the second count should be defective, so that judgment theieori might be arrested, and the court should tell the jury to return their' verdict for the plaintiff, if they found the sty to be
. , , , A new trial is not advised.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.
New trial not advised.