Treadwell v. Conn. Light Power Co.

Full title: THOMAS W. TREADWELL vs. THE CONNECTICUT LIGHT POWER COMPANY

Court: Superior Court Fairfield County

Date published: Jun 28, 1938

6 Conn. Supp. 207 (Conn. Super. Ct. 1938)

Opinion

File No. 49000

Where it appears that a jury must have given credence to evidence which is irreconcilable with the laws of mechanics in order to have arrived at their verdict, the verdict will be set aside. A verdict will not be set aside, in an action wherein the claim was made that a fire originated in an overheated refrigerator motor, and the defendant's witnesses testified that the refrigerator was of steel construction and could not get afire, that various checks prevented the motor from overheating, and that had the motor overheated it could not have caused the fire, since the jury obviously refused to accept the testimony given by the defendant's experts as indisputable and the question was one of fact for the jury.

MEMORANDUM FILED JUNE 28, 1938.

Davis, Davis Davis, of Norwalk, for the Plaintiff.

Carmody Thoms, of Waterbury, for the Defendant.

Memorandum on motion to set aside verdict.

DICKENSON, J.

There is evidence that the Frigidaire was operated by a motor and had a control by which the cold could be regulated, that the control lever was out of order and shifted overnight, freezing the food. The plaintiff's claim was that this and the fact that the motor ran at long intervals with few intervals of rest between would account for an overheating of the motor and setting fire to the floor under or about the Frigidaire, and taken in connection with testimony that the Frigidaire itself was afire, fire was all about it and there was no other apparent cause for the fire, justified the jury in its conclusion.

The defendant offered evidence that the Frigidaire was of steel construction and could not get afire; that various checks prevented the motor from overheating and that had it overheated it could not have created heat that would cause the fire.

Where it appears the jury must have given credence to evidence "which is irreconcilable with, for example, the laws of mechanics" in order to arrive at their verdict it should be set aside. Anderson vs. Colucci, 119 Conn. 241, 245. The evidence in the instant case is indeed irreconcilable with the laws of mechanics if the facts as given by the defendant's experts are accepted as indisputable. But the jury obviously refused to accept them as such and the question is therefore one of fact that may not be disturbed by this Court.