2001 Conn. Super. Ct. 3363 | Conn. Super. Ct. | 2001
The plaintiff John Preston was a passenger in a State of Connecticut bus when it was bumped slightly by a car driven by the defendant John Cestaro. The Cestaro vehicle was owned by the second named defendant Ocean Service, doing business as Highway Service of Connecticut, Inc.
The accident occurred on November 21, 1994. This lawsuit was commenced in July of 1996. The plaintiff alleged in paragraph 6 of the complaint that the collision was due to the negligence of the defendants. In paragraph 7, the plaintiff alleged that, as a result of the collision, the plaintiff suffered personal injuries. In the answer, the defendants denied paragraph 6 and 7. The case was claimed for a jury and placed on the trial list. The plaintiff then moved for summary judgment as to liability only.
Before the motion for summary judgment was heard, the defendants admitted one of the specifications of negligence in paragraph 6 — failure to keep a proper lookout. The amended answer did not change the denial of paragraph 7 — a denial that the collision was a proximate cause of injuries to the plaintiff. The court considered the motion and granted it on February 3, 1997. The matter was then placed on the "hearing in damages" list and later the parties stipulated to a trial to the court instead of to a jury.
The court concludes from the evidence that the plaintiff was not injured as a result of the collision. True, he complained about back pain shortly after the accident. But the evidence suggests that it is more likely than not that his back pain resulted from an incident that occurred some days or weeks before when he fell or jumped to the floor from a top bunk bed. Moreover the court finds that the slight force of the car backing into the large bus was insufficient to produce any injury to the plaintiff.
So under the circumstances, does this finding result in a judgment for the defendants, or must the court nonetheless find for the plaintiff and award at least nominal damages because of the previous summary judgment on liability in plaintiff's favor?
At common law, the elements of a cause of action for negligence were the following: duty; breach of duty; causation; and injury. Prosser and Keeton, Torts, 5th ed., § 30, p. 164-65. Without proof of each of these, a plaintiff's cause would fail entirely and a plaintiff was not entitled to have the question of damages considered by the trier of CT Page 3365 fact. This was so because conduct that was merely negligent was not considered to be a significant interference with the public interest such that there was any right to complain of it, or to be free from it, without proof of an actual injury. Id., p. 165.
Nor was this merely the old-fashioned view. No less a contemporary authority than the Restatement of Torts, Second, adopts the position that nominal damages are not available in a negligence action where no actual injury is proved, since actual injury is an element of the cause of action. Restatement of Torts, Second § 907, comment a, p. 462.
But Connecticut began to stray from this principle. The path to apostasy can be traced to Schmeltz v. Tracy,
Unfortunately, the concept that a "violation of a legal right" avails a plaintiff of nominal damages, correctly applied to a case of common law assault, is picked up and incorrectly applied in the case of Keller v.Carone,
On appeal, the Supreme Court, citing Schmeltz v. Tracy, supra, said the following:
It is true that the effect of the defendants' CT Page 3366 admission of liability was to establish the fact that a technical legal injury had been done by them to the plaintiff, and this entitled the plaintiff to at least nominal damages. This court, however, will not reverse for a mere failure to award nominal damages if substantial justice has been done. Inasmuch as the plaintiff failed to prove any actual damage, it was not reversible error to enter judgment for the defendants.
Id., 406-07 (other citations omitted).
The tenet that a finding of liability can be made without a finding of injury in a cause of action for negligence reached its apotheosis inRiccio v. Abate,
In Riccio as in Keller, supra, the jury found the plaintiff not to be credible regarding the injuries claimed to have been sustained in a rear end collision, and therefore declined to award any damages. But as inKeller, the court in Riccio held that "it was not reversible error that the plaintiff was not awarded nominal damages." Riccio v. Abate, supra, 419.
Can these basic common law principles and the more recent Supreme Court pronouncements be reconciled? Not by this trial court. But this court can use the actual holdings of the cases both to heed the principles of the extant common law and to avoid error. The cases hold that when the negligence of the defendant has not been proved to be a proximate cause of any injuries to the plaintiff, it is not reversible error for the trier to find for the defendant and to award zero damages. See, e.g.,Clay v. Teach,
The court enters judgment for the defendants.
Patty Jenkins Pittman, Judge