(Download) "Martyn v. Donlin" by Supreme Court of Connecticut * eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Martyn v. Donlin
- Author : Supreme Court of Connecticut
- Release Date : January 25, 1964
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 58 KB
Description
This was an action for the recovery of damages for the wrongful death of the plaintiff's decedent, who was shot, on April 20, 1958, just after midnight, by the defendant Robert Donlin, a regular police officer of the defendant city of Hartford, in the course of an attempt to effect the decedent's arrest. In the first count, damages were sought from Donlin. In the second count, damages were sought from the city under what is now 7-465 of the General Statutes. That statute, under certain conditions, imposes liability on a municipality for damage caused by an employee ""if the employee . . . was acting in the performance of his duties and within the scope of his employment, and if . . . [the] injury . . . was not the result of any wilful or wanton act of such employee in the discharge of such duty"". See Allard v. Hartford, 151 Conn. 284, 286, 197 A.2d 69, and cases such as Soucy v. Wysocki, 139 Conn. 622, 628, 96 A.2d 225, and Lentine v. McAvoy, 105 Conn. 528, 531, 136 A. 76. Presumably because of this limitation in the coverage of the statute, the first count of the complaint was very precisely drafted to allege that the decedent's death ""was not the result of any wilful or wanton act of . . . Donlin"" and that the death ""was caused by the carelessness and negligence of . . . [Donlin] while acting within the scope of his employment as a police officer"". Thus under the first count recovery is sought against Donlin in negligence only, and not in assault and battery which is the more usual cause of action in cases such as this. See, for example, Lentine v. McAvoy, supra, 529.