Van Nesse v. Tomaszewski

Summary

The Connecticut Supreme Court affirmed a judgment for an employee of a framing subcontractor who was injured when a defective ladder slipped at a construction site. The court held that sufficient evidence supported the jury’s finding that the general contractor retained or exercised control over the area and instrumentality causing the injury. The court also held that the trial court acted within its discretion in accepting the jury’s revised verdict, including its changed award of noneconomic damages.

Holdings

1. A general contractor may be liable for negligence arising from a condition created or maintained in an area or involving an instrumentality over which the contractor retained or assumed control, even when the work was performed by an independent subcontractor and the contractor's control was shared rather than exclusive. The evidence was sufficient to submit control and liability to the jury.
2. When a court properly returns a jury to reconsider a verdict under General Statutes § 52-223, the jury is not necessarily confined to repeating its original allocation of noneconomic damages; until the court accepts a verdict, there is no valid verdict, and the jury may change its award. The trial court did not abuse its discretion by accepting the second verdict.

Questions Presented

1. Whether sufficient evidence supported the jury's finding that the general contractor retained or assumed sufficient control over the area or instrumentality causing the plaintiff's injury to impose liability for negligence.
2. Whether the trial court abused its discretion by accepting the jury's second verdict after returning the first verdict for reconsideration of the economic damages, where the jury increased the noneconomic damages in the second verdict.

Disposition

affirmed