Opinion
No. CV 02-0515166 S
July 12, 2005
MEMORANDUM OF DECISION MOTIONS TO SET ASIDE VERDICT AND FOR A DIRECTED VERDICT
The defendant filed a motion to set aside plaintiff's verdict and for a directed verdict on the ground that the plaintiff has failed to provide evidence that the defendant had either actual or constructive notice of the alleged defect and absent such notice, the harm alleged is not harm that would be foreseeable to a reasonable person. The defendant argues the plaintiff has, therefore, failed to establish that the defendant was negligent.
This case involves an alleged accident that occurred on February 22, 2000. The plaintiff was entering the defendant's store early in the morning when the automatic doors suddenly slammed shut on the plaintiff's hand. The plaintiff filed suit against the defendant, claiming that the defendant was negligent. The matter went to trial and on January 21, 2005, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff. On January 26, 2005, the defendant filed a motion to set aside the plaintiff's verdict and for judgment to enter in accordance with defendant's motion for directed verdict. On March 7, 2005, the plaintiff filed his opposition to the motion to set aside and for directed verdict. On March 21, 2005, the defendant filed its reply to plaintiff's opposition.
Discussion
"Before determining whether the granting of a motion to set aside is proper, the trial court must look at the relevant law that it gave the jury to apply to the facts, and at the facts that the jury could have found based on the evidence. The law and evidence necessarily define the scope of the trial court's legal discretion." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) PAR Painting, Inc. v. Greenhorne O'Mara, Inc., 61 Conn.App. 317, 322-23, CT Page 11137 763 A.2d 1078, cert. denied, 255 Conn. 951, 770 A.2d 31 (2001). In determining whether to set aside a verdict and grant a directed verdict, a trial court must "consider the evidence, including reasonable inferences which may be drawn therefrom, in the light most favorable to the parties who were successful at trial . . . giving particular weight to the concurrence of the judgments of the judge and the jury, who saw the witnesses and heard the testimony . . . The verdict will be set aside and judgment directed only if we find that the jury could not reasonably and legally have reached their conclusion." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Glazer v. Dress Barn, 274 Conn. 33, 50 (2005). See also Ham v. Green, 248 Conn. 508, 519, 729 A.2d 740 (1999).
"The trial court's function in setting aside a verdict . . . [is] well settled. The trial court should not set a verdict aside where there was some evidence upon which the jury could reasonably have based its verdict, but should not refuse to set it aside where the manifest injustice of the verdict is so plain and palpable as clearly to denote that some mistake was made by the jury in the application of legal principles . . . Ultimately, [t]he decision to set aside a verdict entails the exercise of a broad legal discretion . . . Limiting that discretion, however, is the litigants' constitutional right to have issues of fact determined by a jury where there is room for a reasonable difference of opinion among fair-minded jurors . . . [the court] must consider the evidence, including reasonable inferences which may be drawn therefrom, in the light most favorable to the parties who were successful at trial . . ." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Purzycki v. Fairfield, 244 Conn. 101, 106-07, 708 A.2d 937 (1998).
As for a directed verdict, "[a] trial court should direct a verdict for a defendant if, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, a jury could not reasonably and legally reach any other conclusion than that the defendant is entitled to prevail." Moran v. Eastern Equipment Sales, Inc., 76 Conn.App. 137 (2003).
"The test employed in analyzing a sufficiency of the evidence claim is whether or not, on the basis of the evidence introduced, a reasonable jury, properly motivated, could bring in a verdict against the defendants . . ." Fuller v. First National Supermarkets, Inc., 38 Conn.App. 299, 305, 661 A.2d 110 (1995).
NOTICE CT Page 11138
"Typically, [f]or the plaintiff to recover for the breach of a duty owed to her as a business invitee, she ha[s] to allege and prove that the defendant had actual or constructive notice of the presence of the specific unsafe condition that caused her [injury] . . . Either type of notice must be notice of the very defect which occasioned the injury and not merely of conditions naturally productive of that defect even though subsequently in fact producing it . . . If the plaintiff, however, alleges an affirmative act of negligence, i.e., that the defendant's conduct created the unsafe condition, proof of notice is not necessary . . . That is because when a defendant itself has created a hazardous condition, it safely may be inferred that it had knowledge thereof." (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Meek v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 72 Conn.App. 467, 474, 806 A.2d 546, cert. denied, 262 Conn. 135, 811 A.2d 687 (2002); see also Clennon v. Hometown Buffet, Inc., 84 Conn.App. 182, 186, 852 A.2d 836 (2004) (court found that notice was not an issue because the defendant itself created the dangerous condition).In this case, the jury could have reasonably concluded that the defendant created the hazardous condition by leaving the outside door unlocked and having the inside sliding doors "de-energized." Since the plaintiff has alleged and proved that the defendant's conduct created the dangerous condition that caused his injury, proof of notice is not necessary. Therefore, the motions to set aside the verdict and for a directed verdict are hereby denied.
Burke, J.