Kristine M. Callender v. Black Bear Saloon (2012)

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION RE MOTION TO SET ASIDE VERDICT AND SANCTIONS (# 128)

On April 19, 2012, the jury in the above-referenced case brought back a verdict in favor of the defendant, Black Bear Saloon, LLC. The plaintiff, in timely fashion, has filed a motion to set aside the verdict and further to seek sanctions against the defendant for the failure to disclose an accident report.   The plaintiff's motion first challenges the verdict on the grounds that it is against the evidence and against the law.   No specific reasons are articulated in the motion relating to these two issues.   The evidence in this case demonstrated that the plaintiff was a patron at a restaurant operated by the defendant in Hartford.   Further there is evidence that she was struck in the face by an umbrella pole that had come out of the structure designed to keep the umbrella in a fixed position related to outside tables.   There was no evidence as to the reason why the umbrella became dislodged from the mounting bracket.   There was no testimony directly about any defective condition, any notice that the defendant might have had of the defective condition or the length of time that it might have existed.

The court's job is to “determine, in the light most favorable to sustaining the verdict, whether the totality of the evidence, including reasonable inferences therefrom supports the jury's verdict.”  Word v. Club LLC, 134 Conn. 268, 782 (2012).   In this case, the court believes the jury reasonably could have reached the conclusion that it did.

The plaintiff further claims that the court erred in failing to include in the interrogatories that were submitted to the jury a paragraph asking the question whether or not the jury considered res ipsa loquitur in rendering their decision.   The interrogatories that were submitted to the jury were solicited by the court.   All parties had an opportunity to review them prior to their submission to the jury.   The question posed by the plaintiff is not a proper one for a jury interrogatory and is in fact duplicative to the instruction that the court gave the jury to consider the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur in reaching its verdict.

The plaintiff next complains that the court failed to send the jury back for additional deliberations after it had the opportunity to review the defendant's verdict form and the interrogatory responses that had been provided by the jury as a part of their verdict.   The jury in this case deliberated for a short period of time.   It then completed that the interrogatories that were propounded to them which compelled the conclusion that a verdict enter in favor of the defendant in this case.   There is no set rule in Connecticut concerning the length of time that a jury must deliberate.   In this case the jury followed the court's instructions with regard to the completion of the interrogatories and the court does not agree that it should have sent the jury back for further additional deliberations.

Finally, the plaintiff raises issues with regard to the adequacy of the defendant's compliance with discovery in this case.   During the course of the testimony of the president of the defendant, it was revealed, apparently for the first time, that the defendant had an office procedure whereby any accidents on the premises would be documented with an incident report.   Such an incident report was not produced in any of the discovery responses prior to trial.   After the lunch recess, the defendant advised the court that its insurer had located such a report in its file.   The report identified the manager on duty as Steven Ball, provided the names of the waiter that was serving the plaintiff and further noted that there might be video of the accident available.   The defendant does not dispute that this report was not previously disclosed to the plaintiff.

When the report was discovered, the court asked the plaintiff whether or not they were seeking a mistrial or a continuance to conduct further discovery in light of the report.   The plaintiff did not respond affirmatively to either of those queries by the court.

The defendant's president, under examination by plaintiff's counsel, without hesitation admitted that there should have been a report filed for an incident such as this.   Further, the manager on duty that day, Mr. Steven Ball, testified without hesitation that he had completed such a report although he did not know where it ultimately ended up.

The court is persuaded that this evidence does not support the claims of the plaintiff that this was an intentional withholding of evidence relevant to this case.   The court is of the opinion that had the deposition of Mr. Ball been taken prior to trial, and if such a question had been asked about an incident report, he would have revealed the presence of such a report and that would have engendered a search of further files to be located.   Given the present posture of the case, the court does not believe that sanctions are merited.

For all of the above reasons, the motion to set aside the verdict and for sanctions is denied.

Cosgrove, J.

Cosgrove, Emmet L., J.