Halloran & Sage recently secured an important appellate victory in Snell v. Norwalk Yellow Cab, Inc., et al, — Conn. App. — (Slip. Op. April 4, 2017). A unanimous panel of the Appellate Court confirmed there that the doctrine of superseding cause is “alive and well” in Connecticut’s tort jurisprudence, that it encompasses reckless criminal action and is thus not limited to cases in which the intervening actions were intended to cause harm, as the plaintiff argued.
In Snell, the plaintiff was injured when she was recklessly assaulted by a stolen taxi cab while it was being driven on a sidewalk by its teenaged thieves. The teens had stolen the cab after they found it unattended with the keys in the ignition and they took it for a “joyride” from one town to another. They were then involved in a rear-end collision with another vehicle and attempted to flee that scene by driving onto the sidewalk where the plaintiff was walking.
The plaintiff sought to recover for her injuries by bringing a negligence claim against the cab’s driver and his employer. She did not sue the thieves, however, and the defendants were not permitted under Connecticut law to name them as apportionment defendants because their conduct was not merely negligent. See Barry v. Quality Steel Products, Inc., 263 Conn. 424, 436-39 (2003) (abolishing use of superseding cause doctrine where intervening conduct was negligent and deeming it applicable only to unforeseeable intervening intentional torts, forces of nature and criminal events.) As such, the defendants requested the trial court to instruct the jury that if it found them negligent, it could then assess whether the thieves’ intentional and/or criminal actions were “superseding causes” of the plaintiff’s injuries which shielded the defendants from any liability. The plaintiff countered that the doctrine was not applicable because there was no evidence that the thieves specifically intended to harm her. The trial court agreed with the defendants, issued such an instruction, and the jury rendered a defendants’ verdict. Its answers to jury interrogatories made it clear that it concluded that the thieves’ conduct superseded any negligence on the part of the defendants. The Appellate Court affirmed the trial court’s judgment.
Laura Pascale Zaino, member of Halloran & Sage’s Appellate Practice Group, argued the appeal for the defendants. Kevin M. Roche successfully tried the case to a defendants’ verdict.