Zarrelli v. Barnum Festival Society, Inc.

This case raises, in stark relief, the question of the adequacy of a jury award of $65,000, before reduction for comparative negligence, for the negligently caused death of a twenty-two year old single, working female who was run over by the rear wheels of a flatbed trailer and died twenty-five days later from the injuries received. We conclude that we must “bite the bullet” and, for the first time in Connecticut, find in the necessarily uncertain area of a jury’s valuation of a human life, such an award inadequate as a matter of law.

On July 5,1976, the plaintiffs’ decedent Janice Goodwin,…