Opinion
NNHCV156051509
11-09-2018
Lorraine TROIANO v. Frank RULLY et al.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
OPINION
OZALIS, J.
This memorandum of decision is issued in connection with the plaintiff Lorraine Troiano’s (Troiano) motion to set aside verdict filed on October 8, 2018.
The plaintiff has moved to set aside the verdict entered in defendants’ favor on October 4, 2018 on the following ground: that plaintiff’s counsel was not permitted to rehabilitate or question plaintiff on an interrogatory response related to her broken hip that she certified in another litigation after defense counsel questioned plaintiff on such interrogatory response. The plaintiff claims that such interrogatory response was not relevant to her fall in the subject case and that plaintiff’s counsel’s inability to question plaintiff on this interrogatory resulted in a defendant’s verdict.
Oral argument was heard on this motion on November 5, 2018.
I.
FACTUAL BACKGROUND
This action was commenced on January 6, 2015 by the plaintiff Troiano as against defendants Frank and Laura Rully. This case arises out of a January 13, 2013 slip and fall incident which occurred while plaintiff was going up the stairs at defendants’ home. In her complaint, the plaintiff alleged that she slipped on a slippery substance on the exterior stairs and when she began to fall she reached for a handrail and there was no handrail present on the stairs. Plaintiff claimed that the absence of a handrail was a defect in the stairs, and that such defect caused her to break her hip on January 13, 2013.
Trial was conducted on October 2-4, 2018 and culminated in the jury reaching a defendant’s verdict. During the course of trial, defendant offered into evidence an interrogatory response certified by the plaintiff in a separate litigation action in which she was claiming that a dog knocked her down and injured her knee. In that interrogatory, plaintiff was asked if she "was involved in any incident in which you received personal injuries since the date of the incident alleged in the Complaint, please answer the following: (a) on what date and in what manner did you sustain said injuries?" (Trial Ex. F.) The plaintiff swore under oath on March 12, 2013, two months after the January 13, 2013 incident in this case, that "January 2013 my knee gave out and I fell and broke my hip." (Trial Ex. F.) Plaintiff did not mention a defect in the stairs in that interrogatory answer as the cause of her broken hip (Trial Ex. F.) At trial in this action, the plaintiff denied that her knee caused her to fall. In this action, the jury answered jury interrogatories and rendered a defendant’s verdict. In those interrogatories the jury found that the defendant’s negligence did not cause the injuries claimed by the plaintiff, namely a broken hip.
II.
DISCUSSION
A. Motion to Set Aside Verdict
A motion to set aside or open a civil judgment is governed by General Statutes § 52-212a and Practice Book § 17-4. "A trial court may set aside a verdict on a finding that the verdict is manifestly unjust because, given the evidence presented, the jury mistakenly applied a legal principle or because there is no evidence to which the legal principles of the case could be applied ... A verdict should not be set aside, however, where it is apparent that there was some evidence on which the jury might reasonably have reached its conclusion ... This limitation on a trial court’s discretion results from the constitutional right of litigants to have issues of fact determined by a jury ..." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Deas v. Diaz, 121 Conn.App. 826, 841, 998 A.2d 200, cert. denied, 298 Conn. 905, 3 A.3d 69 (2010). "The credibility and weight to be attributed to any evidence offered [at trial] is solely within the province of the jury." Murteza v. State, 7 Conn.App. 196, 208-09, 508 A.2d 449 (1986). A verdict may also "be set aside if its result justifies a suspicion that a juror or jurors were influenced by prejudice, corruption or partiality." (Citation omitted.) Novak v. Scalesse, 43 Conn.App. 94, 97-98, 681 A.2d 968, cert. granted, 239 Conn. 925, 682 A.2d 1004 (1996).
"A motion to set aside the verdict should be granted if the jury reasonably and legally could not have reached the determination that [it] did in fact reach ... [i]f the jury, without conjecture, could not have found a required element of the cause of action, it cannot withstand a motion to set aside the verdict ... Thus, the role of the trial court on a motion to set aside the jury’s verdict is not to sit as [an added] juror, but, rather, to decide whether, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prevailing party, the jury could reasonably have reached the verdict that it did ... As a corollary, it is the court’s duty to set aside the verdict when it finds that it does manifest injustice, and is ... palpably against the evidence." (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Marciano v. Kraner, 126 Conn.App. 171, 177, 10 A.3d 572, cert. denied, 300 Conn. 922, 14 A.3d 1007 (2011).
In her motion to set aside the verdict, the plaintiff has raised one ground upon which this court should set aside the defendants’ verdict which is that plaintiff’s counsel was not permitted to rehabilitate or question plaintiff on her interrogatory response in Trial Exhibit F after defense counsel questioned plaintiff on such response. The plaintiff claims that such interrogatory response was not relevant to her broken hip in the subject case and that plaintiff’s counsel’s inability to question or rehabilitate the plaintiff on this interrogatory resulted in a defendant’s verdict.
In this motion to set aside verdict, the plaintiff fails to direct this court to any specific portion of the record to support plaintiff’s argument. This court has reviewed the trial recording of the plaintiff’s testimony and plaintiff’s counsel’s questioning and argument on this issue. The record is clear that plaintiff’s counsel was able to and did question and attempt to rehabilitate the plaintiff on Trial Exhibit F. Plaintiff’s counsel asked the plaintiff multiple questions as to whether she authored and/or drafted the interrogatory response and asked her whether she had ever told anyone that on January 13, 2013 her knee gave out and that was what caused her to break her hip. This court finds that the plaintiff’s counsel was not precluded from rehabilitating or questioning the plaintiff on Trial Exhibit F after defense counsel questioned plaintiff on such exhibit. This court also finds that Trial Exhibit F was highly relevant to the issue in this case as to what caused the plaintiff to break her hip on January 13, 2013.
As set forth above, "[a] motion to set aside the verdict should be granted if the jury reasonably and legally could not have reached the determination that [it] did in fact reach ..." Marciano v. Kraner, supra, 126 Conn.App. 177. In the present case, the jury had before it the plaintiff’s admission in another case that her knee giving out was the cause of her broken hip, not the defect claimed in this action. The jury could reasonably have found based on the evidence presented at trial that the defendants’ negligence did not cause the plaintiff’s injuries.
In viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, the court finds that the jury could reasonably have reached the verdict it did in this case. As the verdict is not palpably against the evidence and it would not be a manifest injustice to let this verdict stand, the plaintiff’s motion to set aside the jury’s verdict in favor of the defendants is denied.
III.
CONCLUSION
Based on the foregoing, the plaintiff Lorraine Troiano’s motion to set aside the defendants’ verdict is denied.