Sanchez v. Hartford ( 2024 )

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2 ,0 0 Conn. App. 1Sanchez v. Hartford
JOSE SANCHEZ v. CITY OF HARTFORD ET AL.
(AC 46228)
Elgo, Clark and Westbrook, Js.
Syllabus
The plaintiff sought to recover damages from the defendants, the city of
Hartford and D, a police officer employed by the city, in connection
with injuries he sustained when a motorcycle he was driving collided
with D’s police vehicle. At the time of the accident, the plaintiff was
driving through an intersection with a green light, and D, who was
responding to an emergency call, accelerated his vehicle through the
same intersection with a red light. D activated the lights and sirens
on his vehicle pursuant to statute (§ 14-283) only as he entered the
intersection, not before. The plaintiff alleged that D’s negligence had
caused his injuries and that the city was required to indemnify D pursuant
to the municipal indemnification statute (§ 7-465). After a trial, the jury
returned a verdict for the plaintiff against both defendants, and the
trial court rendered judgment in accordance with the verdict. On the
defendants’ appeal to this court, held:
1. The defendants could not prevail on their claim that it was plain error
for the trial court to instruct the jury on common-law principles of
negligence regarding the operation of a motor vehicle and to fail to
instruct the jury that D, as an operator of an emergency vehicle, was
permitted to disregard driving statutes, ordinances and regulations:
recent decisions by our Supreme Court, including Adesokan v. Bloom-
field (347 Conn. 416) and Daley v. Kashmanian (344 Conn. 464), sup-
ported a claim that the law is unsettled with respect to whether common-
law negligence principles apply in the context of § 14-283; moreover,
the instructions to the jury regarding negligence in this case did not
amount to an error so obvious on its face that it was undebatable, as
the court’s instructions adequately apprised the jury on the applicable
exception to the ordinary rules of driving triggered on satisfaction of
the requirements of § 14-283.
2. The defendants could not prevail on their claim that the trial court commit-
ted plain error by failing to instruct the jury that § 14-283 (e) imposed
a legal duty on the plaintiff to slow down, pull over and/or stop prior
to entering an intersection when an emergency vehicle with its lights
and sirens on approached the same intersection; the court’s instruction
to the jury on contributory negligence substantially complied with the
language of § 14-283 (e) and adequately apprised the jury of the plaintiff’s
duty under § 14-283 (e), and the omission of a specific instruction was
not so obvious an error as to constitute plain error.
Argued May 16—officially released September 3, 2024
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Sanchez v. Hartford
Procedural History
Action to recover damages for, inter alia, personal
injuries sustained as a result of the alleged negligence
of the defendant James Davis, brought to the Superior
Court in the judicial district of Hartford and tried to
the jury before Baio, J.; verdict and judgment for the
plaintiff, from which the defendants appealed to this
court. Affirmed.
Thomas R. Gerarde, with whom were Demar G.
Osbourne and Lidia M. Michols, for the appellants
(defendants).
Michael J. Reilly, for the appellee (plaintiff).
Opinion
WESTBROOK, J. The defendants, the city of Hartford
(city) and James Davis, a police officer employed by
the city, appeal from the judgment of the trial court
rendered after a jury trial finding Davis negligent in
violation of General Statutes § 14-283,1 the city liable
for indemnification pursuant to General Statutes § 7-
465,2 and finding the plaintiff, Jose Sanchez, contribu-
torily negligent. On appeal, the defendants claim that
1
General Statutes § 14-283 provides in relevant part: ‘‘(b) (1) The operator
of an emergency vehicle may . . . (B) except as provided in subdivision
(2) of this subsection, proceed past any red light, stop signal or stop sign,
but only after slowing down or stopping to the extent necessary for the
safe operation of such vehicle . . . .’’
2
General Statutes § 7-465 (a) provides in relevant part that ‘‘[a]ny town,
city or borough, notwithstanding any inconsistent provision of law, general,
special or local, shall pay on behalf of any employee of such municipality
. . . all sums which such employee becomes obligated to pay by reason of
the liability imposed upon such employee by law for damages awarded for
infringement of any person’s civil rights or for physical damages to person
or property, except as set forth in this section, if the employee, at the time
of the occurrence, accident, physical injury or damages complained of,
was acting in the performance of his duties and within the scope of his
employment, and if such occurrence, accident, physical injury or damage
was not the result of any wilful or wanton act of such employee in the
discharge of such duty. . . .’’
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4 ,0 0 Conn. App. 1Sanchez v. Hartford
the court committed plain error3 by (1) (a) instructing
the jury on common law principles of negligence regard-
ing the operation of a motor vehicle, including the duty
to drive with due care, and (b) failing to instruct the
jury that Davis, as an operator of an emergency vehicle,
was permitted to disregard driving statutes, ordinances
and regulations, and (2) failing to instruct the jury that,
pursuant to § 14-283 (e), other operators of motor vehi-
cles have a mandatory duty to drive to a position parallel
to the curb of the roadway and remain there until the
emergency vehicle has passed, ‘‘[u]pon the immediate
approach of an emergency vehicle making use of . . .
an audible warning signal device and such visible flash-
ing or revolving lights . . . .’’4 General Statutes § 14-
283 (e). We conclude that the record does not support
3
The defendants failed to take exception to, and acquiesced in, the jury
instructions following an opportunity to review them. ‘‘Relevant to the issue
of waiver in the context of jury instruction claims, our Supreme Court stated
that when the trial court provides counsel with a copy of the proposed
jury instructions, allows a meaningful opportunity for their review, solicits
comments from counsel regarding changes or modifications and counsel
affirmatively accepts the instructions proposed or given, the defendant may
be deemed to have knowledge of any potential flaws therein and to have
waived implicitly the constitutional right to challenge the instructions on
direct appeal.’’ (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Leach, 165 Conn.
App. 28, 32, 138 A.3d 445, cert. denied, 323 Conn. 948, 169 A.3d 792 (2016).
A court may, however, review an unpreserved claim under the plain error
doctrine. See State v. Bellamy, 323 Conn. 400, 437, 147 A.3d 655 (2016). The
plain error doctrine, ‘‘codified at Practice Book § 60-5, is an extraordinary
remedy used by appellate courts [only] to rectify errors committed at trial
that, although unpreserved, are of such monumental proportion that they
threaten to erode our system of justice and work a serious and manifest
injustice on the aggrieved party.’’ (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id.
The defendants’ attorney conceded at oral argument before this court
that all of the defendants’ claims were unpreserved and are made under
the plain error doctrine.
4
The defendants additionally argue that the trial court improperly failed
to charge the jury that driving with due regard for safety under § 14-283
‘‘involved a discretionary determination by the operator of the emergency
vehicle.’’ We need not address this claim, however, because it is apparent
that this claim is an attempt to apply discretionary act immunity under
General Statutes § 52-557n to this case. Our Supreme Court’s recent deci-
sions in Adesokan v. Bloomfield, 347 Conn. 416, 297 A.3d 983 (2023), and
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Sanchez v. Hartford
the defendants’ claims that the challenged portions of
the jury instructions constituted plain error. Accord-
ingly, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.
The following facts, which the jury reasonably could
have found, and procedural history are relevant to the
defendants’ claims on appeal. On June 13, 2018, the
plaintiff was injured in an automobile accident. At the
time of the accident, the plaintiff was driving a motorcy-
cle through a green light in a southbound direction on
Wethersfield Avenue in Hartford. Davis was responding
to an emergency call5 and accelerated his vehicle
through a red light on Brown Street heading in an east-
bound direction. Davis, in accordance with the city’s
policy and § 14-283, had the lights and sirens of his
police cruiser on as he travelled through the red light,
but he had turned the lights and sirens on only as he
entered the intersection, not before.6 The plaintiff’s
motorcycle collided into the side of the police cruiser
shortly after the cruiser entered the intersection.
In October, 2018, the plaintiff brought a claim of
negligence against Davis alleging a violation of § 14-
283, and a claim of indemnification against the city
Daley v. Kashmanian, 344 Conn. 464, 280 A.3d 68 (2022), however, clearly
hold that discretionary act immunity under § 52-557n does not apply to
driving a motor vehicle in either emergency or nonemergency circum-
stances. The defendants’ citations to Borelli v. Renaldi, 336 Conn. 1, 243
A.3d 1064 (2020), in support of their claim are not persuasive, because
Borelli held that the decision to initiate a police chase, as distinguished
from the manner of driving an emergency vehicle, was protected as a
discretionary act under § 52-557n. See id., 3–4. We therefore conclude that
it was not plain error for the court to fail to charge the jury regarding the
‘‘discretionary determination by the operator of the emergency vehicle.’’
5
Davis was responding to a report of an individual with a mental illness
experiencing hallucinations in the intersection of Wethersfield Avenue, Air-
port Road and Brown Street.
6
Davis turned off the police cruiser’s lights and sirens as he approached
the intersection so as not to disturb the individual reportedly in the intersec-
tion. He turned both the lights and sirens back on only as he began to enter
the intersection of Wethersfield Avenue and Brown Street.
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6 ,0 0 Conn. App. 1Sanchez v. Hartford
pursuant to § 7-465. The defendants filed an answer (1)
denying liability and (2) asserting a number of special
defenses, including contributory negligence.
The matter was tried before a jury over the course
of several days in November, 2022. During trial, the
trial court, Baio, J., requested that the parties submit
proposed jury charges and interrogatories. The defen-
dants did not submit any jury charges prior to the court’s
deadline for doing so.7 After the close of evidence, the
court conducted a charging conference and summa-
rized the results of the conference on the record, which
reflected that the defendants did not object to the jury
charges now challenged on appeal.8
The parties subsequently submitted proposed jury
interrogatories. The plaintiff’s proposed interrogatories
tracked the language of § 14-283. The defendants’ pro-
posed interrogatories focused instead on discretionary
act immunity. The trial court, in light of our Supreme
Court’s recent decision in Daley v. Kashmanian, 344
Conn. 464, 280 A.3d 68 (2022), reserved for itself the
question of whether governmental immunity would
apply to the facts presented, and opted to use the plain-
tiff’s jury interrogatories rather than the defendants’.
In its charge to the jury, the trial court explained that
the plaintiff was asserting a claim of negligence. The
court instructed the jury that ‘‘[n]egligence is the doing
of something which a reasonably prudent person would
not do under the circumstances,’’ and that ‘‘[t]he use
of proper care in a given situation is the care which an
7
The defendants submitted two proposed jury charges after the deadline,
one charge regarding foreseeability and another regarding sudden emer-
gency. The court declined to add these untimely charges because the first
was already subsumed in a different proposed charge and the second was
irrelevant to the case.
8
The defendants expressed concern only over the lack of inclusion of
the factors of foreseeability and emergency circumstances in the negli-
gence charge.
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Sanchez v. Hartford
ordinarily prudent person would use in view of the
surrounding circumstances.’’ The court explained that
the plaintiff alleged that Davis ‘‘was negligent in that
he violated § 14-283,’’ and that, ‘‘[i]n order to find [Davis]
negligent, [the jury] must find that he proceeded
through the red light without due regard as set forth
in the statute.’’ The court additionally explained several
common-law principles of negligence related to the
operation of a motor vehicle, including failure to yield
the right of way, failure to keep and maintain a reason-
able and proper lookout for other vehicles on the road-
way, failure to keep the vehicle under proper and rea-
sonable control, failure to turn the vehicle to avoid the
collision, failure to apply brakes in a timely fashion,
and operating the vehicle in a careless manner and
failing, under the circumstances, to take reasonable and
proper precautions to avoid the probability of harm.
The court instructed the jury that the defendants had
asserted a special defense of comparative negligence
and that they claimed that the plaintiff was negligent
because he ‘‘failed to stop, yield, or keep a reasonable
and proper lookout for emergency vehicles in violation
of . . . § 14-283 and [General Statutes §] 14-283b.’’
After deliberation, the jury returned a verdict in favor
of the plaintiff against both defendants in the amount
of $1,069,649.04. The jury found Davis negligent and the
plaintiff contributorily negligent, assigning 35 percent
comparative negligence to the plaintiff. In its special
interrogatories, the jury specifically found that Davis
failed (1) to slow down or stop to the extent necessary
for the safe operation of his vehicle when he proceeded
past the red light and (2) to operate his vehicle at the
time of the incident with due regard for the safety of
all persons and property given all the circumstances
and conditions then present. The court accepted the
jury’s verdict and rendered judgment in accordance
with the verdict on November 18, 2022.
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The defendants filed posttrial motions, including a
motion to set aside the verdict on the grounds that the
defendants were immune from liability for negligence
under the doctrine of governmental immunity and that
the jury instructions and special interrogatories were
prejudicial, irrelevant, and resulted in jury confusion.
The court heard oral argument on the defendants’ post-
trial motions on January 13, 2023. After oral argument,
the court denied the motions. This appeal followed.
The following legal principles guide our analysis of
the defendants’ claims. ‘‘It is well established that the
plain error doctrine, codified at Practice Book § 60-5,9
is an extraordinary remedy used by appellate courts to
rectify errors committed at trial that, although unpre-
served [and nonconstitutional in nature], are of such
monumental proportion that they threaten to erode our
system of justice and work a serious and manifest injus-
tice on the aggrieved party. [T]he plain error doctrine
. . . is not . . . a rule of reviewability. It is a rule of
reversibility. That is, it is a doctrine that this court
invokes in order to rectify a trial court ruling that,
although either not properly preserved or never raised
at all in the trial court, nonetheless requires reversal
of the trial court’s judgment . . . for reasons of policy.’’
(Footnote added; internal quotation marks omitted.)
State v. Ruocco, 322 Conn. 796, 803, 144 A.3d 354 (2016).
‘‘An appellate court addressing a claim of plain error
first must determine if the error is indeed plain in the
sense that it is patent [or] readily [discernible] on the
face of a factually adequate record, [and] also . . .
obvious in the sense of not debatable. . . . This deter-
mination clearly requires a review of the plain error
Practice Book § 60-5 provides in relevant part that ‘‘[t]he court may
9
reverse or modify the decision of the trial court if it determines that the
factual findings are clearly erroneous in view of the evidence and pleadings
in the whole record, or that the decision is otherwise erroneous in law. . . .’’
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Sanchez v. Hartford
claim presented in light of the record. Although a com-
plete record and an obvious error are prerequisites for
plain error review, they are not, of themselves, suffi-
cient for its application. . . . [T]he plain error doctrine
is reserved for truly extraordinary situations [in which]
the existence of the error is so obvious that it affects
the fairness and integrity of and public confidence in
the judicial proceedings. . . . [I]n addition to examin-
ing the patent nature of the error, the reviewing court
must examine that error for the grievousness of its
consequences in order to determine whether reversal
under the plain error doctrine is appropriate. A party
cannot prevail under plain error unless it has demon-
strated that the failure to grant relief will result in mani-
fest injustice. . . . [Previously], [our Supreme Court]
described the two-pronged nature of the plain error
doctrine: [An appellant] cannot prevail under [the plain
error doctrine] . . . unless he demonstrates that the
claimed error is both so clear and so harmful that a
failure to reverse the judgment would result in manifest
injustice.’’ (Citations omitted; emphasis in original;
internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. McClain,
324 Conn. 802, 812, 155 A.3d 209 (2017).
I
The defendants first claim that it was plain error
for the trial court to instruct the jury on common-law
principles of negligence regarding the operation of a
motor vehicle and for the court to fail to instruct the
jury that Davis, as an operator of an emergency vehicle,
was permitted to disregard driving statutes, ordinances
and regulations. We disagree.
We turn to the first prong of the plain error doctrine,
namely, whether the trial court’s decision to instruct
the jury on common-law principles of negligence
regarding the operation of a motor vehicle, and its fail-
ure to instruct the jury that Davis, as an operator of an
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emergency vehicle, was permitted to disregard driving
statutes, ordinances and regulations, was so patent or
readily discernible an error as to constitute plain error.
To determine whether the trial court committed plain
error in instructing the jury on common-law principles
of negligence regarding the operation of a motor vehi-
cle, we must examine the trial court’s jury instructions,
mindful that, ‘‘[j]ury instructions are to be read as a
whole, and instructions claimed to be improper are read
in the context of the entire charge. . . . A jury charge
is to be considered from the standpoint of its effect on
the jury in guiding it to a correct verdict. . . . The test
to determine if a jury charge is proper is whether it
fairly presents the case to the jury in such a way that
injustice is not done to either party under the estab-
lished rules of law. . . . [I]nstructions to the jury need
not be in the precise language of a request. . . . More-
over, [j]ury instructions need not be exhaustive, perfect
or technically accurate, so long as they are correct in
law, adapted to the issues and sufficient for the guid-
ance of the jury.’’ (Citations omitted; internal quotation
marks omitted.) McDermott v. Calvary Baptist Church,
263 Conn. 378, 383–84, 819 A.2d 795 (2003).
The trial court in this case instructed the jury that
‘‘the plaintiff specifically allege[d] that [Davis] was neg-
ligent in that he violated § 14-283 of the General Statutes
and [the city’s] general order concerning the operation
of police vehicles.
‘‘Where it would normally be a mandated finding of
lack of due care for a civilian to proceed against a red
light, [§] 14-283 permits a police officer to do so in
certain circumstances. The statute permits the officer,
if the operator of any emergency vehicle, to do so only
after slowing down or stopping to the extent necessary
for the safe operation of such vehicle and only if driving
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Sanchez v. Hartford
with due regard for the safety of all persons and prop-
erty. Emergency vehicle is defined in relevant part as
any vehicle operated by a police officer ‘answering an
emergency call or in pursuit of fleeing law violators.’
You may consider as evidence of what is required to
determine due regard such things as the [police] manual
and the circumstances then and there existing, includ-
ing for example, sight lines, the ability to stop and the
like. In order to find [Davis] negligent, you must find
that he proceeded through the red light without due
regard as set forth in the statute.’’
The court also instructed the jury on several common-
law principles of negligence, including the failure to
‘‘yield the right of way to the plaintiff’s vehicle,’’ ‘‘keep
and maintain a reasonable and proper lookout for other
vehicles on the roadway,’’ ‘‘keep his vehicle under
proper and reasonable control,’’ ‘‘turn his vehicle to the
left or to the right to avoid the collision,’’ ‘‘apply his
brakes in a timely fashion to avoid the collision when,
in the exercise of reasonable care, he could and should
have done so,’’ ‘‘sound his horn or otherwise signal or
warn the plaintiff of the impending collision,’’ and ‘‘take
reasonable and proper precautions to avoid the proba-
bility of harm to the plaintiff’’ under the circumstances
then and there existing.
The defendants in this case contend that the jury
instructions were flawed because the jury should have
been instructed only in accordance with § 14-283 once
the requirements of the statute were satisfied, and not
with common-law principles of negligence. The defen-
dants argue that, under a plain reading of § 14-283, the
only way a police officer responding to an emergency
in accordance with the statute can be found negligent
is if he or she was found to have not been ‘‘[driving]
with due regard for the safety of all persons and prop-
erty’’ and not ‘‘if they do not abide by traffic laws such
as failing to yield the right of way to the [plaintiff’s]
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vehicle.’’ They argue that it was therefore plain error
for the court to instruct the jury in this case on other
principles of negligence and to fail to instruct the jury
that, under § 14-283, ‘‘emergency operators are author-
ized to disregard statutes, ordinances or regulations
governing direction of movement or turning in a specific
direction’’ because the requirements of § 14-283 were
met.
Recent cases from our Supreme Court, however,
undermine the defendants’ claim. In Adesokan v.
Bloomfield, 347 Conn. 416, 441, 297 A.3d 983 (2023),
our Supreme Court stated, ‘‘by its own terms, § 14-
283 (d) imposes . . . a negligence standard of care on
emergency vehicle operators . . . .’’ ‘‘Section 14-283
provides the operators of emergency vehicles relief in
certain discrete circumstances—such as the response
to an emergency or the police pursuit of a fleeing law
violator—from what ordinarily would be negligence per
se, namely, the operation of a motor vehicle in violation
of rules of the road such as speed limits and traffic
control devices. . . . The effect of the statute is merely
to displace the conclusive presumption of negligence
that ordinarily arises from the violation of traffic rules.
The statute does not relieve operators of emergency
vehicles from their general duty to exercise due care
for the safety of others.’’ (Citation omitted; emphasis
added; footnote omitted; internal quotation marks omit-
ted.) Daley v. Kashmanian, supra, 344 Conn. 492.
We conclude that the question of whether § 14-283
precludes the application of other common-law princi-
ples of negligence is unsettled and that, as a result, it
was not plain error for the court to instruct the jury on
both § 14-283 and common-law forms of negligence.
‘‘[W]e emphasize that it has been especially rare for a
jury instruction to be so clearly improper that our courts
have deemed plain error review necessary to correct
it. . . . This court has done so when the trial court has
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Sanchez v. Hartford
affirmatively misstated the law . . . and when it has
failed to comply with a statute that mandates a particu-
lar instruction. . . . We do not suggest that there are
no other circumstances in which an instruction could
constitute plain error, but the reluctance with which
we have chosen that course underscores that plain error
is reserved for only the most egregious defects.’’ (Cita-
tions omitted.) State v. Kyle A., 348 Conn. 437, 448, 307
A.3d 249 (2024). On the basis of our review of our
Supreme Court’s decisions in Daley and Adesokan, we
are not persuaded that the court’s jury instruction
addressing both § 14-283 and common-law principles
of negligence amounted to an error so obvious on its
face that is beyond debate. Existing case law, at best,
supports a claim the law is unsettled with respect to
whether common-law negligence principles apply in the
context of § 14-283.
We additionally are not persuaded that, when read
as a whole, the court’s instructions inadequately
apprised the jury that, under § 14-283, ‘‘emergency oper-
ators are authorized to disregard statutes, ordinances
or regulations governing direction of movement or turn-
ing in a specific direction.’’ The court noted in its
instruction to the jury that § 14-283 provides an excep-
tion to the drivers of emergency vehicles, stating that,
‘‘[w]here it would normally be a mandated finding of
lack of due care for a civilian to proceed against a red
light, [§] 14-283 permits a police officer to do so in
certain circumstances.’’ Although not stated in the spe-
cific language of § 14-283, the court’s instructions ade-
quately apprised the jury on the applicable exception
to the ordinary rules of driving triggered on the satisfac-
tion of the requirements of the statute. We accordingly
conclude that it was not plain error for the court to
not specifically instruct the jury that, under § 14-283,
‘‘emergency operators are authorized to disregard stat-
utes, ordinances or regulations governing direction of
movement or turning in a specific direction.’’
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14 ,0 0 Conn. App. 1Sanchez v. Hartford
We are therefore unpersuaded that the court’s negli-
gence instructions amounted to an error so obvious on
its face that is undebatable. We accordingly conclude
that the negligence jury instructions in this case were
not so clearly and obviously wrong that, when read as
a whole, they constitute plain error.10
II
The defendants next claim that the court committed
plain error by failing to instruct the jury that § 14-283
imposed a legal duty on operators of motor vehicles,
such as the plaintiff, to slow down, pull over and/or stop
prior to entering an intersection when an emergency
vehicle with its lights and sirens on approaches the
same intersection. We disagree.
We turn to the first prong of the plain error doctrine,
as previously set forth in part I of this opinion, namely,
whether the trial court’s failure to instruct the jury that
the plaintiff ‘‘had a mandatory obligation to immediately
drive to a position parallel to, and as close as possible
to, the right-hand curb of the roadway, keep clear of
an intersection, and stop and remain in such position
until the emergency vehicle passed pursuant to . . .
§ 14-283’’ is so clear an error that a failure to reverse
the judgment would result in manifest injustice.
In the present case, the court instructed the jury
that ‘‘the defendant[s] must prove that the plaintiff was
negligent in one or more of the ways specified in the
special defense and that such negligence was a legal
cause of any of the plaintiff’s injuries.
10
‘‘Having determined that the [defendants’] claim fails under the first
prong of the plain error doctrine, we need not reach the second prong,
which examines whether failure to correct the alleged error would result
in manifest injustice. See State v. Blaine, 334 Conn. 298, 313 n.5, 221 A.3d
798 (2019) (declining to reach second prong of plain error doctrine because
defendant’s claim failed under first prong).’’ Cookish v. Commissioner of
Correction, 337 Conn. 348, 359, 253 A.3d 467 (2020).
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Sanchez v. Hartford
‘‘The special defense filed by the defendant[s] alleges
a number of specific ways in which the plaintiff was
negligent. . . . To establish that the plaintiff was negli-
gent, it is not necessary for the defendant[s] to prove
all of these specific allegations. The proof by a prepon-
derance of the evidence of any one of these specific
allegations is sufficient to prove negligence on the part
of the plaintiff. The [defendants claim] that the plain-
tiff’s injury was the result of his own negligence in that
. . . he failed to stop, yield, or keep a reasonable and
proper lookout for . . . emergency vehicles in viola-
tion of . . . §§ 14-283 and 14-283b.’’ (Emphasis
added.)
The defendants argue that ‘‘[t]he court should have
instructed the jury that, if they found that the [plaintiff]
failed to drive to a position parallel to the right-hand
edge or curb of the roadway and remain stopped in
that position until the emergency vehicle passed, then
the jury could find that the [plaintiff] was contributorily
negligent pursuant to . . . § 14-283.’’
Although the court did not read verbatim the duty in
§ 14-283 (e) that, ‘‘[u]pon the immediate approach of
[a] . . . local police vehicle properly and lawfully mak-
ing use of an audible warning signal device . . . the
operator of every other vehicle in the immediate vicinity
shall immediately drive to a position parallel to, and as
close as possible to, the right-hand edge or curb of the
roadway clear of any intersection and shall stop and
remain in such position until the emergency vehicle has
passed,’’ this omission did not constitute plain error.
The court’s instruction to the jury on contributory negli-
gence, including that it consider whether the plaintiff
had failed to ‘‘stop, yield, or keep a reasonable and
proper lookout for emergency vehicles in violation of
. . . §§ 14-283 and 14-283b,’’ substantially complied
with the statutory language of § 14-283. A plain reading
of the instruction as given is that it is a violation of
Page 14 CONNECTICUT LAW JOURNAL 0, 0
16 ,0 0 Conn. App. 1Sanchez v. Hartford
§ 14-283 to fail to stop and yield upon the approach of
an emergency vehicle. As previously stated in part I of
this opinion, ‘‘[t]he test to determine if a jury charge is
proper is whether it fairly presents the case to the jury
in such a way that injustice is not done to either party
under the established rules of law,’’ and ‘‘[j]ury instruc-
tions need not be exhaustive, perfect or technically
accurate, so long as they are correct in law, adapted
to the issues and sufficient for the guidance of the jury.’’
(Emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted.)
McDermott v. Calvary Baptist Church, supra, 263 Conn.
383–84. We are not persuaded that the court’s omission
of a specific instruction that an operator’s duty is trig-
gered by an approaching police vehicle with its sirens
on, or that an operator is negligent when they fail to
drive to a position parallel to the right-hand edge or
curb of the roadway upon the immediate approach of
a police vehicle with its sirens on was so obvious an
error so as to constitute plain error. Taken as a whole,
we conclude that the instruction fairly and adequately
apprised the jury of the plaintiff’s duty under § 14-
283 (e).
The instruction as given generally tracks § 14-283 (e)
and gave the jury a clear understanding of the issue
presented under the cause of action, defenses, and evi-
dence presented. We therefore conclude that the court’s
instruction on the defendants’ special defense under
§ 14-283 in this case was not so clearly and patently
wrong that it rose to the level of plain error.11
The judgment is affirmed.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.
11
See footnote 10 of this opinion.