 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
SUAREZ v. DICKMONT PLASTICS CORPORATION2/18/1997
ual intent to injure. We agree.
The standard for reviewing the denial of motions to set aside the verdict and for judgment notwithstanding the verdict on evidentiary grounds is clear. "Our review of the trial court's refusal to [grant the motions] requires us to consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the prevailing party, according particular weight to the congruence of the judgment of the trial judge and the jury, who saw the witnesses and heard their testimony. . . . The verdict will be set aside and judgment directed only if we find that the jury could not reasonably and legally have reached their conclusion." (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Mather v. Griffin Hospital, 207 Conn. 125, 130, 540 A.2d 666 (1988).
Relying on this standard, the plaintiff argues that there existed sufficient evidence from which the jury could have inferred that, based upon the defendant's policies and the nature of the workplace, Santiago, as the defendant's alter ego, specifically had intended to cause the plaintiff to injure himself. Specifically, the plaintiff argues that Santiago's insistence that the plaintiff always clean the hot plastic material from the machines with his bare hands while the machines were still operating, along with the reprimands and threats that the plaintiff received from Santiago the few times he had attempted to turn off the machines prior to cleaning them, served as a basis upon which the jury could have found the defendant's specific intent to injure. We conclude that although this evidence was sufficient to allow an inference that the employer knew that the occurrence of the injury was a substantial certainty; Suarez v. Dickmont Plastics Corp., supra, 229 Conn. 109; it was inadequate to support a rational inference that the defendant specifically intended for the plaintiff to be injured.
We begin with the proposition that permitting an employee to sue an employer for injuries intentionally
caused to him constitutes "a narrow exception to the exclusivity of the act." Mingachos v. CBS, Inc., 196 Conn. 91, 99, 491 A.2d 368 (1985). "Since the legal justification for the common-law action is the nonaccidental character of the injury from the defendant employer's standpoint, the common-law liability of the employer cannot . . . be stretched to include accidental injuries caused by the gross, wanton, wilful, deliberate, intentional, reckless, culpable, or malicious negligence, breach of statute, or other misconduct of the employer short of a conscious and deliberate intent directed to the purpose of inflicting an injury." 6 A. Larson & L. Larson, Workmen's Compensation (1997) § 68.13, pp. 13-12 through 13-13. What is being tested is not the degree of gravity of the employer's conduct, but, rather, the narrow issue of intentional versus accidental conduct.
In defining intent, we have stated that "intent refers to the consequences of an act . . . denote that the actor desires to cause consequences of his act, or that he believes that the consequences are substantially certain to follow from it. 1 Restatement (Second), Torts § 8A (1965). . . . A result is intended if the act is done for the purpose of accomplishing such a result or with knowledge that to a substantial certainty such a result will ensue. 1 F. Harper & F. James, Torts (1956) § 3.3, p. 216. An intended or wilful injury does not necessarily involve the ill will or malevolence shown in express malice, but it is insufficient to constitute such an [intended] injury that the act . . . was the voluntary action of the person involved. Mingachos v. CBS, Inc., supra, [196 Conn.] 102. Both the action producing the injury and the resulting injury must be inten
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Connecticut Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|