Breach of Contract Cases

The plaintiff R, who sustained injuries after he was injured in a motor vehicle collision involving an uninsured motorist, sought to recover uninsured motorist benefits allegedly due under an automobile insurance policy issued by the defendant W Co. At the time of the accident, R was operating a vehicle owned by a car dealership and covered by a commer- cial garage insurance policy issued by W Co. The trial court granted W Co.'s motion to bifurcate the issues of the insurance coverage limits and damages. A bifurcated trial before the court followed, limited to the issue of uninsured motorist coverage provided by the policy. During the trial, the sole witness, B, the owner of the dealership, testified credibly that he did not have education or formal training on risk loss and insurance purchasing but wanted to have the minimum amounts of uninsured motorist coverage required by state law as the dealership was not in the business of loaning or renting cars. B consulted with an insurance professional, C, to provide him advice, which he considered in determining the scope of coverage for the dealership. B attested that he received a waiver form from C, which listed $100,000 in uninsured motorist coverage, reviewed it, knowingly approved his selection, and signed his name on the last page of the form and sent it back to C. In its memorandum of decision, the court determined, inter alia, that the dealership, the only named insured on the policy, knowingly made an informed decision to reduce the uninsured motorist coverage from $1 million, the amount of liability coverage under the policy, to $100,000 on the waiver form, and, although the waiver form did not contain a statement of premium costs for each of the uninsured motorist coverage options available as required pursuant to the applicable statute (§ 38a- 336 (a) (2)), which permits the named insured to request a lesser amount of uninsured motorist coverage in writing, such noncompliance was excused because the policy w

The plaintiff appealed to this court from the judgments of the trial court dismissing the substitute complaints in three cases she had filed against her former employer, the defendant hospital, as barred by the exclusivity provision (§ 31-284 (a)) of the Workers' Compensation Act (§ 31-275 et seq.). The plaintiff had been employed by the defendant when she suf- fered an injury for which she sought workers' compensation benefits, and the defendant accepted the claim. The plaintiff filed functionally identical substitute complaints in each of the three actions, alleging, inter alia, that the defendant had engaged in retaliatory and discriminatory conduct against her in violation of statute (§ 31-290a) as a result of her having sought workers' compensation benefits. The trial court granted the defendant's motions to strike all three complaints, determining that they did not allege employment discrimination claims pursuant to § 31- 290a but, rather, bad faith processing of a workers' compensation claim, which was barred by § 31-284 (a). Held that the trial court properly struck the complaints as being barred by § 31-284 (a), as the plaintiff failed to allege any adverse employment action by the defendant, none of its alleged behavior related to or had any effect on her employment status, she admitted in her complaints that the defendant's behavior did not arise out of or in the course of her employment, and, despite her attempt to recast her claims as alleging employment discrimination, she alleged nothing more than bad faith processing of her workers' compensation claim. Argued January 20—officially released May 3, 2022

The plaintiff town sought to recover damages from the defendant contractor for breach of contract. The plaintiff owned a vacant brass mill factory that was contaminated with, inter alia, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The plaintiff, on the advice of consultants, applied to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for permission to demol- ish and clean up the property and engage contractors to perform the work. The plaintiff issued a notice inviting prospective contractors to provide bids for the third phase of the project, which involved the demolition, abatement and remediation of the property. The notice indi- cated that the contractor would be allowed to keep the scrap value of any structural steel salvaged from the site. The plaintiff made all public information about the project available to prospective bidders, including a report from one of its consultants that referenced the presence of PCBs throughout the building. The plaintiff also provided a letter to all prospective bidders clarifying that the selected contractor would be responsible for the sampling and disposal of any PCB contaminated material. The defendant submitted the winning bid for the contract, in which it did not allocate any funds for the remediation or disposal of any contaminated structural steel on the site, as it believed that the steel was not contaminated and could be recycled without remediation. Once selected, the defendant executed a certification acknowledging that it had read and agreed to abide by all conditions set forth in the EPA's approval letter for the third phase of the project, which included attachments regarding the cleanup of PCB contaminated material and correspondence between the EPA and the plaintiff regarding the PCB contamination of various materials, including steel beams. The parties then entered into a contract for the phase three work, which expressly incorporated the EPA approval letter and established a 140 day deadline for the defendant to