Jennifer Connell is seeking $127,000 in damages for a wrist she claims was broken when her nephew suddenly jumped into her arms back in 2011.
A Connecticut jury needed just 25 minutes Tuesday to decide against a Manhattan human resources manager who sued her own nephew for $127,000 in damages after he accidentally broke her wrist.
Connell barely flinched when the jury’s verdict was read and then fled the Bridgeport courthouse without saying a word.
Her now 12-year-old nephew, Sean Tarala of Westport, Conn., was not in the courtroom.
“We just couldn't find him, you know, liable for what happened,” a female juror said of the boy.
Sean’s lawyer refused to spike the ball and praised the plucky nephew.
“He’s a great kid, he’s got nothing to do with this,” attorney Thomas Noniewicz said.
The panel decided the 54-year-old aunt didn’t deserve a penny after her lawyer and Noniewicz made their closing arguments at Superior Court.
“We do not take great pleasure in bringing a minor to court,” Connell’s lawyer, William Beckert, said. “She is not here enjoying a moment of this."
But Sean “should have known better.”
"We have rules for children," the lawyer continued. "He was not careful. He was unsafe.”
As Beckert spoke, Connell, 54, sat quietly with a black wrist guard on her left arm. Sean, whose mom died last year, was not in the court.
Sean’s lawyer said the only thing the boy is guilty of is “trying to give his aunt a hug on his birthday.”
"Kids will be kids," Noniewicz said. "He was an 8-year-old boy being an 8-year-old boy...Sean was not negligent."
Connell, who lives on E. 73rd St. and has no kids of her own, claimed her wrist was broken when Sean suddenly jumped into her arms back in 2011.
The auntie said Sean wrecked her social life by making it “difficult to hold my hors d’oeuvres plate” and that having a bum wrist makes it difficult for her to climb the stairs to her third-floor walkup or get around Manhattan.
