Opinion
Argued October 8th, 1930
Decided November 7th, 1930.
ACTION to recover damages for the death of the plaintiff's intestate, alleged to have been caused by the defendant's negligence, brought to the Superior Court in Hartford County and tried to the jury before Baldwin, J.; verdict for the plaintiff, which the trial court set aside, and from this decision the plaintiff appealed. Error; judgment directed on verdict.
Jacob Schwolsky and Milton Nahum, with whom, on the brief, was Julius Apter, for the appellant (plaintiff).
Ralph O. Wells, for the appellee (defendant).
The court set aside the verdict largely upon its lack of reliance upon the testimony of the only eyewitness to the accident, due to the witness having made on a material point a statement shortly after the accident different from that testified to by her. It was for the jury, not the court, to pass upon the credibility of the witness' testimony. Further, the statement of the decedent to his wife at the hospital of what happened at the time of the accident, taken in connection with the physical facts and other undisputed facts in evidence, furnished a reasonable basis of fact upon which the jury might have reached their verdict. The motion to set aside the verdict should have been denied.