Retaliation Cases

summary judgment, retaliatory eviction, protected act, summary ejectment, notice to vacate

summary judgment, retaliatory eviction, protected act, summary ejectment, notice to vacate

The plaintiff, a director of member services at the defendant C Co., sought to recover damages from various defendants for alleged gender discrimi- nation and retaliation in violation of a provision (§ 46a-60) of the Con- necticut Fair Employment Practices Act. A few years after the plaintiff was hired, several employees in her department resigned while she was the director, and a few of those employees expressed displeasure with working for her and voiced complaints about her during exit interviews. In response, the defendant D, the executive director of C Co., instructed B, the director of human resources of C Co., to conduct an investigation into the allegations, which resulted in the termination of the plaintiff's employment. The plaintiff then commenced an action against C Co. and a related entity and a separate action against D, B and the defendant T, the deputy director of C Co., with whom the plaintiff did not get along. The two actions were consolidated for the purposes of discovery, pretrial pleadings and trial. Subsequently, the defendants filed a motion for summary judgment in each case, arguing that there were no genuine issues of material fact that would permit an inference of gender discrimi- nation or, in the alternative, that her termination was a pretext for gender discrimination. The trial court granted the defendants' motion, and the plaintiff appealed to this court. Held that the trial court properly granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment in each case, as no reasonable jury could have concluded that the plaintiff's termination was motivated in whole or in part by gender discrimination: the plaintiff did not demonstrate the existence of a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the defendants' legitimate, nondiscriminatory justification for her discharge, namely, repeated charges of mismanagement of employees and failure to respect authority as detailed in the report of the investigation, was a pretext for unlawful discriminatio

The plaintiff, who was employed as a nurse by the defendant, the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, sought to recover damages for employment discrimination and retaliation, in violation of the Con- necticut Fair Employment Practices Act (CFEPA) (§ 46a-51 et seq.). The plaintiff was diagnosed with allergic and nonallergic rhinitis and asthma and began experiencing debilitating reactions when exposed to scents. As a result, she requested, and the committee tasked with reviewing requests for accommodation pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) (42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq.) on behalf of the defendant approved, certain workplace accommodations, including designating the unit to which the plaintiff was assigned as a scent-free environment and providing a high efficiency particulate air filtration system for that unit. Some employees failed to comply with the scent-free designation, and, to avoid adverse reactions, the plaintiff would use fans to disperse scents and seek refuge in an office that was free of scents. The plaintiff's attorney subsequently requested a meeting with the defendant in order to engage in the informal, interactive process required by CFEPA, pursu- ant to which the employee and the employer are to identify the precise limitations resulting from the employee's disability and potential, reason- able accommodations for those limitations. The chairperson of the ADA review committee met with the plaintiff and her attorney, but, with limited exceptions, the defendant took no additional measures to enforce the scent-free designation. After filing a complaint with and obtaining a release of jurisdiction from the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (CHRO), the plaintiff commenced the present action, alleging unlawful employment discrimination on the basis of her disabil- ity. While the case was pending, the defendant updated its scent exposure protocols, and those updates prohibited the plaintiff from using fans