Richard N. Palmer

The case involved a lawsuit by American Diamond Exchange, Inc., a jewelry business, against Jurgita Karobkaite alleging she participated with her then-husband Scott Alpert in diverting customers and stealing diamonds from the company, with claims of tortious interference with business expectancy and civil conspiracy. Following a prior remand for recalculation of damages on the existing record, the trial court awarded the plaintiff $103,356.68. On appeal, the court reversed the judgment, holding that the trial evidence was insufficient to establish the amount of the plaintiff's damages with reasonable certainty.

business & regulatorytorts & liabilityprocedure

This case involved a breach of contract and mechanic's lien foreclosure dispute between a builder and homeowners over the construction of a single-family residence in Greenwich, Connecticut. The trial court awarded the builder damages for the contract balance, delay costs, lost profits, and attorney's fees while granting the homeowners a statutory award for an invalid lien. On appeal, the court reversed in part, concluding that the wife was not liable because she was not a party to the contract, that the builder was not entitled to delay damages under the contract terms, that certain mechanic's liens were invalid or overstated, and that the award of attorney's fees to the builder under the relevant statute was improper while the homeowners were entitled to fees for successfully challenging an invalid lien.

propertyprocedurebusiness & regulatory

The case Marciano v. Kraner involved plaintiffs seeking permission to appeal a prior ruling issued by the Connecticut Appellate Court. The Supreme Court denied the petition for certification to appeal from the Appellate Court decision reported at 126 Conn. App. 171. This denial means the Appellate Court's judgment remains in effect without further review by the Supreme Court. Justice Palmer did not take part in considering or deciding the petition.

procedure

This case arose from a marital dissolution action in which the trial court ordered the plaintiff husband to pay the defendant wife a $24 million lump sum from marital bank and brokerage accounts as part of the asset distribution. After discovering valuation errors in certain accounts and personal property, the plaintiff filed motions to reargue, resulting in a reduced award of $23,834,900; when the plaintiff paid only part of that amount, the defendant sought contempt, and the trial court ordered payment of the $3,828,081 balance plus interest under General Statutes § 37-3a. The Appellate Court upheld the reduced award and the award of interest but remanded for a new hearing on the interest amount. The Supreme Court affirmed that the reduction was not an improper modification of the original judgment and that the trial court had discretion to award interest from the date of the reargument order, but reversed the remand because the record was sufficient to support the trial court's interest determination.

family lawprocedure

The case concerned a defendant's petition seeking certification to appeal a ruling from the Connecticut Appellate Court in the matter of Spears v. Elder. The Supreme Court denied the petition for certification. Justice Palmer did not participate in the consideration or decision on this petition.

procedure

In State v. Canady, a fifteen-year-old defendant was convicted by a jury of felony murder, first-degree manslaughter, and first-degree robbery after evidence showed he assaulted and robbed a woman following a sexual encounter, leading to her death. On appeal, the defendant challenged the trial court's admission of his statements to a juvenile detention officer, denial of his motion to suppress those statements on Miranda grounds, and allowance of third-party statements as adoptive admissions under hearsay rules. The court affirmed the convictions, holding that the statements were properly admitted under General Statutes § 46b-137(a) without Miranda violations and that the adoptive admissions exception applied based on the defendant's responses. It further rejected claims of prosecutorial impropriety and insufficient evidence, finding the trial record supported the jury's verdict.

criminal lawprocedure

This case concerned whether a defendant convicted of unlawful restraint in the second degree involving a minor victim was required to register as a sex offender under General Statutes § 54-251(a) even though the trial court had mistakenly advised him at the time of his Alford plea that registration was not required. The defendant argued that the court's failure to provide the statutorily mandated advisement exempted him from registration. The Connecticut Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's ruling that the defendant must register, holding that the registration obligation is triggered by the nature of the offense itself and that noncompliance with the advisement provision does not create an exemption or allow the defendant to avoid the statutory mandate. The court reasoned that the legislature intended mandatory registration for qualifying offenses regardless of any judicial misstatement, and the defendant had the option to withdraw his plea but declined to do so.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved a slip-and-fall lawsuit in which plaintiff Darren Humphrey alleged he was injured by grapes on the floor of a supermarket operated by defendant Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company. After a bench trial, the court entered judgment for the defendant on the ground that Humphrey had not proved the store had actual or constructive notice of the specific hazard. While Humphrey's appeal was pending, the Connecticut Supreme Court decided Kelly v. Stop & Shop, Inc., which adopted the mode-of-operation rule eliminating the need to prove notice in self-service retail settings, but limited the new rule to future cases and pending cases in which trial had not yet begun. The Appellate Court affirmed the trial judgment, holding that Kelly's limitation barred application of the rule here. The Supreme Court reversed, concluding that the limitation applies only to cases in which the plaintiff had not raised a mode-of-operation claim at trial; because Humphrey had preserved the claim, he was entitled to the benefit of the Kelly holding.

torts & liabilityprocedure

In Slack v. Greene, the plaintiff sought a declaratory judgment that she had acquired a prescriptive easement over a paved right-of-way on the defendant's property to access her home, based on her and her family's use of the path since 1959. The trial court ruled in the plaintiff's favor, finding that she had established all elements of a prescriptive easement under Connecticut law. On appeal, the defendant argued that the evidence was insufficient to prove the required elements, including open and continuous use under a claim of right for the statutory period without permission. The appellate court affirmed the judgment, holding that the trial court's findings were supported by credible testimony from the plaintiff, neighbors, and family members regarding decades of visible, uninterrupted use. The court also declined to reconsider the preponderance-of-the-evidence standard for such claims, as it had not been raised at trial and the evidence was clear and substantial.

property

In Cruz v. Montanez, an employee who had received workers' compensation benefits from his employer for injuries from a work-related motor vehicle accident sued the third-party drivers under General Statutes § 31-293(a), and the employer intervened to seek reimbursement from any damages recovered. The jury awarded the employee $75,000 in noneconomic damages only, and the trial court apportioned $26,090.96 of that award to the employer to cover the benefits it had paid. The Connecticut Supreme Court affirmed, reasoning that the statute permits reimbursement from any damages the employee recovers against third-party tortfeasors, that the definition of compensation is broad enough to include loss-of-use benefits, and that the employee could have presented evidence of economic damages but chose not to do so.

labor & employmenttorts & liability

This case concerned a claim for survivor’s benefits under Connecticut’s workers’ compensation statute after the death of an employee who had suffered a compensable cervical-spine injury in a 1997 work-related car accident. The workers’ compensation commissioner awarded benefits, finding that the employee’s resulting pain treatment, weight gain, and inactivity had substantially contributed to his fatal heart disease; the compensation review board upheld the award. The Appellate Court reversed, concluding that the record contained insufficient subordinate facts to support the causal finding, and the Supreme Court affirmed that reversal. The Court reasoned that the treating physician’s opinion rested on speculation rather than competent evidence, that no autopsy had been performed, that the employee had multiple pre-existing risk factors for heart disease, and that the opposing cardiologist’s testimony undermined the claimed link. It further held that prior precedents allowing inferences from circumstantial evidence did not apply because the inferences here lacked reasonable evidentiary support.

labor & employment

The case concerns a medical malpractice action against New Britain General Hospital and a medical practice group in which the defendants sought review of an Appellate Court ruling on post-trial proceedings. The Connecticut Supreme Court granted the defendants' petition for certification, limited to two questions: whether the Appellate Court correctly held that the trial court should have granted the plaintiffs' motion to set aside the verdict because of juror misconduct, and whether the Appellate Court properly ordered a new trial if that holding was correct. No substantive reasoning on the merits was provided in the order, which also noted that Justice Palmer did not participate in the decision on the petition.

proceduretorts & liabilityhealthcare

In State v. Gelormino, the defendant entered an Alford plea to one count of sale of marijuana by a person who is not drug-dependent and faced a mandatory minimum five-year prison sentence under General Statutes § 21a-278 (b). He had previously received a sentence departure from the mandatory minimum in a related Litchfield case under General Statutes § 21a-283a, which allows a court to depart from such sentences if the provision has not previously been invoked on the defendant's behalf. The trial court denied his motion for another departure in this Waterbury case, and the appellate court affirmed that decision. The court reasoned that the plain language of § 21a-283a barred a second invocation of its departure provisions, regardless of the factual connection between the two cases.

criminal law

The case involved a manufacturer, Sylvan R. Shemitz Designs, Inc., suing the makers of defective capacitor boots used in its lighting fixtures under Connecticut's Product Liability Act to recover costs of repairing and replacing fixtures that failed due to the defect after being sold to customers. The trial court struck the strict liability claim, ruling that the expenses were unrecoverable commercial losses because the plaintiff no longer owned the damaged property. The Connecticut Supreme Court reversed, holding that the costs qualified as recoverable damage to property under the Act's definition of harm, which includes damage to the product itself. The court reasoned that the statute permits recovery for such losses in the chain of distribution between commercial parties and that precedents on remote economic harms did not apply here.

torts & liability

The case concerned a dispute between the plaintiffs and Amica Mutual Insurance Company that had already been decided by the Connecticut Appellate Court. The plaintiffs filed a petition asking the Connecticut Supreme Court to review that decision. The Supreme Court denied the petition for certification to appeal, ending the litigation at that level. No detailed reasoning was provided for the denial, and one justice did not take part in the decision.

procedurebusiness & regulatory

In State v. Holness, a jury convicted the defendant of two counts of first-degree assault and one count of carrying a pistol without a permit after he followed the victim from a carnival, demanded his jewelry on a porch, and shot him in the chest. On appeal, the defendant claimed violations of his Sixth Amendment confrontation rights when the trial court allowed the state to cross-examine him using hearsay statements from an unavailable declarant about disposing of the gun and to introduce a witness's prior written statement that the witness disavowed at trial. The Connecticut Supreme Court affirmed the convictions, holding that the first claim was waived because defense counsel agreed to a limiting instruction on the hearsay statements and that the second claim failed because the defense had a full and fair opportunity to cross-examine the witness about his statement. The court rejected arguments that the waiver was invalid or that the witness's disavowal prevented effective confrontation.

criminal lawprocedure

In State v. Johnson, a jury convicted the defendant of three counts of murder after the trial court consolidated the charges for a single trial and allowed expert testimony describing the killings as serial murders. The defendant appealed, claiming improper consolidation because the evidence of each murder was not cross-admissible to prove intent or a common plan, and that the expert testimony should not have been admitted. The Connecticut Supreme Court affirmed the convictions, concluding that the evidence of each murder was cross-admissible to show propensity under its recent decisions in State v. DeJesus and State v. Snelgrove, and that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in permitting the expert testimony.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved eight same-sex couples who sued Connecticut state and local officials, claiming that the state's statutory prohibition on same-sex marriage violated their rights to substantive due process and equal protection under the state constitution. The trial court granted summary judgment for the defendants, concluding that because same-sex couples could enter civil unions with the same legal rights as marriage, no constitutionally cognizable harm existed. The Connecticut Supreme Court reversed and remanded, determining that the separation of heterosexual and homosexual couples into different legal institutions inflicts harm given the unique status of marriage, that sexual orientation constitutes a quasi-suspect classification under the state equal protection provisions, and that the state had not provided sufficient justification for excluding same-sex couples from marriage under intermediate scrutiny. The court did not reach claims under stricter scrutiny standards.

civil rightsfamily law

This case involves a defendant's request for the Connecticut Supreme Court to review a decision by the Appellate Court in a criminal matter, specifically State v. Juan V. from 109 Conn. App. 431. The court denied the petition for certification to appeal. Justice Palmer did not participate in the decision. No reasoning is provided beyond the denial itself.

criminal law

The case involved plaintiffs who sought approval for a sixty-lot residential subdivision in Windsor and challenged conditions imposed by the town's planning and zoning commission under a local regulation requiring a special use permit for subdivisions of more than thirty lots. The trial court upheld three of the challenged conditions after finding the regulation valid, but the Connecticut Supreme Court reversed in part. The court held that the commission lacked authority to enact the regulation because subdivision regulation is a planning function governed exclusively by General Statutes § 8-25, whereas special permits are a zoning tool under § 8-2 that cannot be applied to subdivisions. The decision rested on the statutory distinction between planning and zoning powers, under which the commission could not impose special-permit requirements on subdivision applications.

propertybusiness & regulatory