Justia Connecticut Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

The plaintiff filed a defamation lawsuit against the defendant after she called him a "white supremacist" on a social media page. The defendant made this statement during a heated political discussion on a town's Facebook page, which was in response to a joint statement by local officials regarding the killing of George Floyd. The plaintiff argued that the term "white supremacist" constituted defamation per se.The trial court, the Superior Court in the judicial district of Waterbury, granted the defendant's special motion to dismiss under Connecticut's anti-SLAPP statute (§ 52-196a). The court determined that the defendant's statements were nonactionable opinions rather than actionable defamation per se. The court also awarded the defendant attorney’s fees and costs. The plaintiff appealed, arguing that the trial court incorrectly concluded that he had failed to show probable cause that he would prevail on the merits of his defamation claim and that the court abused its discretion in awarding attorney’s fees.The Supreme Court of Connecticut reviewed the case and affirmed the trial court's decision. The court held that the term "white supremacist," without more, is a nonactionable opinion rather than actionable defamation per se. The court reasoned that the term lacks a precise meaning, cannot be objectively verified, and does not necessarily imply that the declarant knew existing, undisclosed defamatory facts. The context in which the defendant made the statement—a heated political debate on social media—further supported the conclusion that the statement was an opinion. The court also found no abuse of discretion in the trial court's award of attorney’s fees and costs to the defendant. View "Murphy v. Rosen" on Justia Law

In a civil action for underinsured motorist benefits, a law firm representing the plaintiff engaged in ex parte communications with an orthopedic surgeon disclosed by the defendant insurance company as an expert witness. The firm scheduled an appointment for the expert to examine the plaintiff and subsequently disclosed the expert as their own witness, indicating that the expert would testify that the plaintiff's shoulder injury was related to the accident. The expert's report, following the examination, supported this causation.The trial court disqualified the expert from testifying and imposed sanctions on the law firm, requiring it to pay the defendant for the expenses incurred in retaining the expert. The court concluded that the law firm's conduct violated Practice Book § 13-4, which it interpreted as implicitly prohibiting ex parte communications with an opposing party's disclosed expert witness. The Appellate Court reversed the trial court's order, finding that Practice Book § 13-4 did not clearly prohibit such ex parte communications.The Connecticut Supreme Court affirmed the Appellate Court's decision, agreeing that Practice Book § 13-4 was not reasonably clear in prohibiting ex parte communications with an opposing party's disclosed expert witness. The court emphasized that the rule's current version lacks explicit limiting language and that the difference in treatment between disclosed expert witnesses and nontestifying experts in the rule supports this conclusion. The court declined to exercise its supervisory authority to create a new rule prohibiting such conduct, noting that the issue did not rise to a level warranting such an extraordinary remedy. View "Epright v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co." on Justia Law

The plaintiff, a developer and manufacturer of resinous flooring systems, sued several individual and corporate defendants for misappropriation of trade secrets, among other claims. The key individual defendant, S, was a former employee who developed a product called Poly-Crete for the plaintiff. After resigning, S started his own business and developed similar products, allegedly using the plaintiff’s trade secrets. The plaintiff claimed that S and other defendants, including companies that tested and used S’s products, misappropriated its trade secrets.The trial court conducted a bench trial in three phases. In the first phase, the court found that the plaintiff’s formulas for Poly-Crete and other products were trade secrets but ruled that the noncompete agreement S signed was unenforceable due to lack of consideration. The court also found that the plaintiff’s common-law confidentiality claim was preempted by the Connecticut Uniform Trade Secrets Act (CUTSA).In the second phase, the court found that S and some defendants misappropriated the plaintiff’s trade secrets to create products like ProKrete and ProSpartic. However, it ruled that other defendants, including Indue, Krone, ECI, and Merrifield, did not misappropriate the trade secrets as they did not know or have reason to know about the misappropriation. The court also granted attorney’s fees to Krone and ECI, finding the plaintiff’s claims against them were made in bad faith.In the third phase, the court ordered the defendants who misappropriated the trade secrets to disgorge profits and enjoined them from using the trade secrets. The court also sanctioned the plaintiff for attempted spoliation of evidence by its president, F, who tried to remove incriminating photos from the company’s Facebook page during the trial.The Connecticut Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s rulings on most issues but reversed the judgment regarding the enforceability of the noncompete agreement and the standard for determining misappropriation. The case was remanded for further proceedings on these issues. View "Dur-A-Flex, Inc. v. Dy" on Justia Law

A man convicted of murder sued his former attorney and law firm for legal malpractice and fraud, alleging they failed to properly represent him in a federal civil rights action and a state habeas action. The trial court dismissed the plaintiff's claims related to the habeas action, concluding they were not ripe for adjudication because the plaintiff's underlying criminal conviction had not been invalidated. The plaintiff appealed to the Appellate Court, which affirmed the trial court's judgment regarding the legal malpractice claim but reversed with respect to the fraud claim.The Supreme Court of Connecticut held that the Appellate Court improperly affirmed the trial court's dismissal of the plaintiff's legal malpractice claim for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The Supreme Court disagreed with the Appellate Court's reliance on a previous case that a criminally convicted plaintiff's failure to obtain appellate or postconviction relief from his conviction prior to commencing a criminal malpractice action renders the action unripe and presents an issue of justiciability that implicates a court’s subject matter jurisdiction. Instead, the Supreme Court determined that the question was whether a criminally convicted plaintiff who had not obtained appellate or postconviction relief from his conviction has alleged facts sufficient to state a valid cause of action for criminal malpractice. The Supreme Court concluded that the plaintiff's claim of criminal malpractice should have been the subject of a motion to strike rather than a motion to dismiss. The judgment of the Appellate Court was reversed with respect to the plaintiff's claim of criminal malpractice and the case was remanded for further proceedings. View "Cooke v. Williams" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court held that Plaintiffs, complainants in attorney disciplinary proceedings, were neither statutorily nor classically aggrieved by certain decisions of the Fairfield Grievance Panel and the Stamford-Norwalk Grievance Panel dismissing Plaintiffs’ grievance complaints against five attorneys and by other actions of the Statewide Grievance Committee with respect to proceedings against two other attorneys.While the grievance proceedings were pending, Plaintiffs brought this action seeking a writ of mandamus and injunctive relief claiming that Defendants improperly handled Plaintiffs’ grievance complaints against the seven attorneys. The trial court dismissed this action for lack of standing. The Supreme Court adopted the trial court’s “concise and well reasoned decision” as a statement of the facts and the applicable law on the issues and affirmed, holding that the trial court did not err in concluding that Plaintiffs lacked standing to seek court intervention in the attorney disciplinary proceedings. View "D'Attilo v. Statewide Grievance Committee" on Justia Law

Plaintiff’s collateral attack on Sowell v. DiCara, 127 A.3d 356 (Conn. App. Ct. 2015), cert. denied, 128 A.3d 953 (Conn. 2015), in this declaratory judgment action was nonjusticiable under Valvo v. Freedom of Information Commission, 985 A.2d 1052 (Conn. 2010).Plaintiff filed a writ error (first writ) claiming that a judge had improperly found clear and convincing evidence that he had violated Rule 4.2 of the Rules of Professional Conduct. The Appellate Court found that Plaintiff had violated Rule 4.2 and dismissed the first writ. Thereafter, Plaintiff filed a writ of error in the Supreme Court challenging the Appellate Court’s actions (second writ). The Appellate Court dismissed the second writ. Plaintiff then filed the present action against a law firm and the Appellate Court claiming that the Appellate Court’s construction of Rule 4.2 was a due process violation. The trial court granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss, concluding that the claims against the Appellate Court were barred by sovereign immunity. On appeal, Plaintiff claimed that the trial court erred in concluding that Plaintiff’s challenge to the Appellate Court’s interpretation of Rule 4.2 in Sowell was barred by the doctrine of sovereign immunity. The Supreme Court affirmed on the alternative ground that Plaintiff’s collateral attack on Sowell was nonjusticiable under Vavlo. View "Mendillo v. Tinley, Renehan & Dost, LLP" on Justia Law

Defendant was an attorney who represented clients in contingency fee matters that originated while he was a member of a two-person law firm with Plaintiff. After the dissolution of that firm, Defendant continued to represent those clients, and those fees were not paid until after the dissolution. Plaintiff brought this action claiming that Defendant’s failure to pay him those fees constituted, inter alia, breach of contract and unjust enrichment. The trial court concluded that Plaintiff was entitled to recover on his claim of unjust enrichment with respect to the contingency fee cases and found that Defendant owed Plaintiff $116,298.89. Defendant appealed, arguing that the award violated the fee splitting provisions of Rule 1.5(e) of the Rules of Professional Conduct because the clients had not consented to the fee sharing. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the trial court properly awarded Plaintiff a portion of the contingency fees that Defendant collected subsequent to the firm’s dissolution. View "Horner v. Bagnell" on Justia Law

After being sanctioned, Plaintiff, an attorney licensed to practice law in the State of Connecticut, was suspended from practice before the Appellate Court for a period of six months. Plaintiff filed a writ of error, asserting that the Appellate Court abused its discretion in suspending her from practice because the conduct for which she was sanctioned did not violate rule 8.4 of the Rules of Professional Conduct. The Supreme Court dismissed the writ of error, holding (1) the Appellate Court did not abuse its discretion in suspending Plaintiff from the practice of law before the Appellate Court on the basis of her repeated failure to comply with Appellate Court rules and deadlines, and for filing a frivolous appeal; and (2) Plaintiff’s argument that rule 8.4 provides an exclusive list of misconduct for which an attorney may be sanctioned is patently frivolous. View "Miller v. Appellate Court" on Justia Law

John McConnell created a trust naming his three children - James McConnell, Kathleen Hewitt, and Amy Sheridan - as beneficiaries. A decade later, Hewitt filed an application for, inter alia, a trust accounting and removal of a trustee. Plaintiffs in error represented Hewitt during the proceedings on the application. The probate court approved a stipulated agreement authorizing certain distributions to Hewitt and Sheridan from the trust. McConnell appealed, claiming that he did not receive notice of the probate proceedings and would not have consented to the terms of the stipulated agreement if he had had the opportunity to participate. The trial court issued an order to show cause why McConnell’s appeal should not be sustained and the probate court’s order vacated. The court ordered the Plaintiffs in error to appear at the hearing on the order to show cause. The plaintiffs in error appeared at the hearing and testified about their involvement in the proceedings before the probate court. Thereafter, the plaintiffs in error filed this writ of error challenging the trial court’s authority to order that they appear in court. The Supreme Court dismissed the writ of error, holding that the trial court’s order was not a final judgment from which a writ of error may be brought. View "McConnell v. McConnell" on Justia Law

In 2009, the dissolution court dissolved the marriage of James and Diana Jordan. The court ordered that, after payment of attorneys fees and other obligations, the balance of the parties’ account at Northwestern Mutual (account) be divided equally between the parties. Plaintiff, Diana’s father, brought this action against James to collect the outstanding balance on James’s promissory note to him. The trial court entered judgment in favor of Plaintiff. James then filed a claim for a determination of interests in the account. Defendants, the attorney and firm that represented James in the dissolution action, also sought a determination of interests in the account, claiming that they had a claim prior in right to Plaintiff’s claim by virtue of the charging lien arising by operation of law in the dissolution action. The trial court concluded that Defendants had no superior interest in the account because a charging lien in connection with a dissolution action would be prohibited by the Rules of Professional Conduct. The Appellate Court reversed. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that attorneys are not entitled by operation of law to equitable charging liens on marital assets for fees and expenses incurred in obtaining judgments for their clients in marital dissolution proceedings. View "Olszewski v. Jordan" on Justia Law